Thin Skin and Barely Bone
by CrazyLove345
Summary: Summers with the love of your life are supposed to be filled with trips to the beach with romantic kisses, not nights spent in never-ending worry and visits to the hospital. As a new and dangerous secret arises, will Ezra and Aria be able to get through it together? Or will it tear them apart forever? A story about patience, support, and unconditional true love. *Graphic themes*
1. One Text that Changed Everything

**Thin Skin and Barely Bone: Chapter 1**

**One Text that Changed Everything**

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_Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.__  
__~ Nathaniel Hawthorne_

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_**June 23**__**rd**__**, 2011.**_

There is _nothing _better than a woman waking up to the man who she loves more than life itself early one summer morning with his breath in her ear and his long, strong arms around her, holding her to him like a boa constrictor. His dark brown curls shown in the faint June sunlight that streamed through the thin curtains of the apartment balcony and faint stubble grew on his cheeks and chin as he hadn't shaved in at least four days. He wore a pair of boxers and a tight white undershirt that hugged his body rather nicely. Out of a cute little habit of his, Ezra chuckled away in his sleep.

Aria smiled at him as she watched him as he dreamt the morning away, her hand entangled with his between their two bodies. She'd stayed the night as she always on the weekends. She'd said that she would be at her friend, Spencer's house for a weekend getaway when really, she was spending her time making out and making love to the man she loved in his apartment. They would run for a morning coffee at the new restaurant, _The Brew_, and then do whatever they felt like doing while they were together. They would go to the creek just outside of Rosewood, to the movies and ignore it completely as they kissed passionately and lovingly. Sometimes they would just stay at home in the apartment and lay on the couch, entangled with one another, watching old movies all day.

It didn't really matter where they went or what they did because they were in each other's company. That was their gold in the old wooden treasure chest.

She had only lied to her father every weekend and almost every day, since her estranged parents were getting a divorce from 'inconsolable differences' and her mother had left to go stay in the same apartment as she did months before above the old art studio in downtown Rosewood.. Ella was coming to and accepting the terms that her eldest child was dating her former English teacher. Byron, on the other hand, was still in the denial stage that his little girl and his former friend as well as colleague were together the whole time that the family had been back from Europe. He probably knew that Aria was going to Ezra's, but he didn't even bother to argue with her or try and tear the two of them apart once again because the last thing he wanted was to push her so far that their father-daughter relationship would always be broken beyond repair.

She gently stroked Ezra's face with her fingers, her face soft and loving as she kissed the tip of his nose and then silently and stealthily found a way out of his strong arms without awaking him. He didn't stir and she took advantage of the time of going to the very small kitchen area and making a pot of coffee for them to share once he woke up from his deep and laugh-filled slumber. Once it was brewing, she opened the fridge, knowing that it would be happen. She had to convince her boyfriend of now nine months to go to the grocery once every millennium so then they wouldn't have to eat Thai takeout for every single meal.

Aria took out the half empty gallon of milk and the almost expired dozen of eggs before closing the fridge. She stood on her tiptoes in order to reach the pancake mix on top of it. She would treat her man to pancakes and store bought maple syrup. He barely knew how to cook anything and she wanted to make sure that he didn't starve because he lacked skills in the kitchen and only knew how to make three different dishes and even that was a bit of a stretch for him to do.

She sprayed down the pan and turned the stove on so then it could warm up. She took out a mixing bowl and cracked two eggs into it, the yoke bursting as she poured the pancake mix and milk in and stirred it all together as quietly as possible. If he didn't have enough sleep and food in his stomach, Ezra wouldn't be able to stay awake for the plans they had that day, which were going to the historic art museum in Philly. They had tickets for a small art opening that Ezra had won from a raffle before he was terminated from his position at Hollis. Now that he wasn't teaching there or at Rosewood High anymore, he couldn't afford to pay for a limo for them to go in, unlike their first 'real' date back in November.

They would be lucky if they could even afford the gas to get there.

Though they went public with their love for each other at the masquerade ball in March when Ezra had removed the masks from both of their faces, the habit of sneaking off to different cities in order to be together was taking longer than they thought to wear off. Sure, they were adjusting to going into downtown Rosewood together, holding hands and acting like every other couple walking alongside them on the sidewalk, but the linger and judging stares they received still had them taking off to New Hope, Scranton, and Phileldelphia. People in the small town were still having trouble accepting the relationship of a former teacher and student when really it had nothing to do with them or their own lives. Ezra and Aria hoped that the opinion of their town would change as time went on. They would just have to be patient for the acceptance that they really should already have. Their love was no different than anyone else's; only the circumstances were.

As she waited for the first batch of pancakes to cook on the steaming hot pan on the stove, Aria went to go get ready for the day, keeping the cooking timer near her as she walked into the bathroom in case she needed to rush out and save the food from mass destruction of being burnt, and closed the door firmly and quietly behind her. She looked into the mirror and tried her best not to cringe at the sight of her morning self. Ezra said that she was always beautiful, especially without the makeup and she questioned his sanity as she took in her image. Her long brunette hair was a tangled mess all around her face and her clothes, which were only a t-shirt of her boyfriend's that hung loosely on her body, but he insisted she wore it because it looked better on her than it did on him, and a pair of her pajama shorts, were wrinkled and torn. Her face was free of makeup except for some leftover eyeliner from the previous day. She was surprised that Ezra could even look at her sometimes.

A buzz came from her iPhone in her pajama short's pocket and she automatically reached to get it, tucking a loose lock of her hair behind her ear as she unlocked the screen and saw the text that was waiting for her. She thought it was going to be Ella or Byron or maybe even one of the girls wanting to check in with her. Instead, her heart stopped as she saw the words:

_**Unknown number. **_

Beads of sweat broke above her brow and began to roll down her face as she backed up against the glass door of the shower. Her breathing was heavy and labored. She felt like gravity was no longer working as she fought to gain some of her composure back. She thought that she and the other girls were done with the whole –A mess once Mona was sent to Radley after the masquerade ball. She thought that she would able to walk down the street without being afraid and glancing behind her shoulder every three seconds out of fear of someone watching her. _Is it really starting again_? Aria thought fearfully, doing her best not to scream.

She swallowed hard as she opened the text and her burning and tear-filled hazel eyes widened as she read it out loud to herself, her voice choked with panic:

**Poor little Aria. Alright, maybe not the 'little' part. You're always worried about your cute boyfriend thinks of you. You should try shedding some of those holiday pounds and then maybe he'll want to see you naked more often. **

**-A.**

Dread and terror filled Aria as she finally looked up into the mirror at her reflection. She always thought of herself as a slender young woman with curves. And besides, Ezra seemed to love her body after all the times he'd tried to get her nude. He once said that if he was a woman and had her body, he would be walking in no clothes all the time. He would love her no matter what she looked like, right? He always told her that.

Or was he just being polite and not trying to hurt her feelings?

Now that she looked at herself in the mirror, Aria couldn't help but notice the baby fat on her cheeks and underneath her chin. Her arms and legs were a little bit too round for her comfort and when she moved, she cringed as they waved and jiggled. Her torso was like a pumpkin now that she looked at herself hard enough. She glanced down with tears in her eyes and grasped it in her hands. She wanted to throw up at how much fat was in her grip at that moment. She felt sickened with herself. She wanted to break the mirror, but she didn't want to blame an object for what she looked like. It wasn't its fault. It was hers. And that made her want to die even more than what it was already eating her inside.

Then the worst thought popped into her head:

_What does _Ezra _think about me walking around and looking like an elephant? I bet he's so embarrassed to call me his girlfriend. Why does he even allow himself to be seen in public with me? He must want to throw up every time he looks at me. He must think that he's stuck with me since no one else with love me looking like this. _

Aria didn't hear the timer for the pancakes cooking on the stove go off and it was ringing throughout the entire bathroom. She could hear the fire alarm going off in the apartment and she knew by the footsteps and swearing outside the door that Ezra was now awake. He started to pound on the bathroom door, "Aria? Are you in there? Why are there pancakes smoking in the apartment?" When he received no answer, his voice grew worried as he said, "Are you okay? You're making me worried sick. I'm coming in, whether you're naked or not. It's not like I haven't seen you like that before."

The bathroom door opened and soon her wild blue-eyed boyfriend was staring at her with his wavy curly brown hair falling all over his face and forehead. His face was creased with worry and fatigue, his body tense, "Aria, are you alright? You look kind of pale." He took her into his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, "The pancakes on the stove were burnt to a crisp, so I tossed them out. Why did you leave the kitchen when you were making breakfast? Are my bad habits rubbing off on you or something?" He chuckled and pulled away to look at her. His boyish smile slowly fell from his face as he took in her wet-eyed and tear stained cheeks, "Aria, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" He kissed a few of the tears away with his soft lips and wiped the remaining ones from the corners of her eyes.

She forced a grin to her face as she stretched up to press her lips to his, "Oh, nothing that you need to worry about. PMS stuff. I'm just a couple days away from my next cycle and my hormones are acting insane this week. There is no need to worry about me. " It was a lie but she didn't want to imagine what he would do if he found out the way that she feeling at that moment. Or _**why **_she was feeling that way. If he knew that –A was back, it would only make him even more paranoid about her. He would never leave her side.

He shook his head and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, stroking her cheek gently with his thumb, "I do nothing but worry when you cry. So don't tell me to not do my job. A man hates seeing tears in his woman's eyes. It hurts him more than a thorn of a rose piercing his skin."

Aria kissed him again; this time, the embrace was longer and drawn out so then she could convince him that she was fine when really she was dying inside because of her realization of what she looked like, thanks to the text from -A. Ezra pressed her against the sink, his hands pulling on the t-shirt she was wearing. She knotted her fingers into his curly hair, clinging and leaning into his long and lanky body, feeling every single one of his muscles against her. He was so strong, so graceful, so _**amazing. **_

_He is such a beautiful man. I don't deserve him. He deserves someone prettier, smart and thinner than me. Someone who he can proud of when he's walking down the street, holding her hand. He deserves someone who he can look at without wanting to throw up. He deserves someone who he can love because they can make the best love to him at night. _The thought stuck a thick briar into her throat and it wouldn't go away. She felt horrible that she couldn't satisfy Ezra because of her image, because of her failure, because of _**her. **_

Finally, the two of them separated, leaning their foreheads together and breathing heavily. Ezra kissed her one last lingering time before murmuring, "I love you so damn much." He stepped away from her with a smile and a sigh of happiness, looking at her up and down, making her feel tiny underneath his hungry and lustful gaze, "Let's go and see if we can finish making breakfast without burning the apartment down." He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle press to his lips, looking at her with his boyish grin widening on his lips, "Shall we, my beautiful lady?"

Hearing the word 'beautiful' tumble from her boyfriend's mouth made the whole growing inside of her even bigger. Aria knew that he was just trying to compliment her and make her feel better about herself and the fact that he was lying to her hurt her more than anything else. He was everything and more to her. She had to try and lose what she had to in order to please him. She wanted to make him happy because he made her the happiest girl in the world just by looking at her with those smoldering dark blue eyes that burned intense cobalt lava filled with love and tenderness and those auburn curls falling over them, his boyish grin on his lips. He deserved to be happy and she wanted him to be delighted to be with her and only her. So, she was going to whatever it took to make him that way.

She kissed his cheek and whispered, "Let's go."

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Ezra took a sip of his coffee as he glanced over the mug at his girlfriend. God, Aria Montgomery was so beautiful, it took his breath away. And he had the pleasure of calling her _his girlfriend_. He never thought that they would ever make it as far as they did or be as _**happy**_ as they were together with all of the stuff that they had to go through: the blackmail, the sneaking around, the disapproving town and her parents who forced them apart and then tried to send both of them off to different states to then they couldn't be together. However, there they were, sitting at his kitchen table, reading the _Rosewood Observer _and eating the pancakes they'd made.

Well, the pancakes that _**Aria **_had made while he looked on, but that was beside the point.

Aria caught him staring at her again and she ducked her head as if she were embarrassed, her long and magnificent waterfall-like brunette hair hiding her face from his view. Something in the pit of his stomach told him that something was going on with her that she wouldn't tell him about. He could see that she wasn't being her normal happy and cherry self and it worried him to see her upset about something that he couldn't fix. If there were a threat to her that had been made, she would tell him about it, right?

Immediately after the whole thing with Mona and then Maya's death, Aria had been very closed off. She wouldn't sleep or eat or even look at him the same way. There some nights when he had just held her while she woke up screaming from a nightmare and then would just break down crying into his shirt until it tear-soaked. He went back to Rosewood after the ball to help her deal with everything, even though she was the only one who he was returning for. He didn't have anything or anyone else holding him to the jobless and judgeful town that stared hostilely at them every time the two of them walked down the street together.

After going public at the ball when they'd removed the masks from their faces as they kissed and danced together, Ezra didn't know what to expect from Rosewood or the people in it. It hadn't been an easy road already, between the time they'd met to going public at a school party and the aftermath of that whole ordeal. They got stares and glares from all the townspeople every time they went into public together. Both of them did the best to ignore the attention, but it was awfully hard when there were rumors going around that he had taken advantage of her and promised her things to have sex with him and that he got her pregnant. Others were that she was a whore who was one of those girls who flirted with every guy, including her male teachers. The gossip hurt and enraged Ezra, but what was he going to do? He couldn't stop what people thought of the situation.

He could only prove to them that he loved Aria more than any man ever loved a woman.

He'd known from the beginning that it would have been better to stay away from Aria and let her live a normal life as the average teenage girl. However, it didn't work out that way. He couldn't stay away from her, as many times as he had tried. He remembered the first time he met her as if it were just earlier that morning. They had had no idea where a flirtatious conversation was going to lead them the next day when they'd found that he was her English teacher at Rosewood High….

_**Nine months earlier. September 1**__**st**__**, 2010. **_

_"__Are you alright down there?" Ezra picked his head up from where he read _Ulysses_, an old novel that he was only halfway through and wanted it to be over. He loved classic literature, but this story bored him half to death. _

_He tried not to stare. The young woman sitting two seats down from him was the most beautiful female he had ever laid eyes on. Her hair fell in a dark brunette mess around her shoulders. Her eyes burned a flaming hazel. They met his immediately and soon he was blinded from amazingly white pearly teeth. He was stunned, like a deer in front of headlights as she looked over at him with a tiny twitch to her pursed and soft pink lips, "I'm a bit jetlagged. I just got back from Europe."Her voice was a like a gentle ringing in the smoke-filled air of the old bar and it sent his heart on a high speed chase like the Kentucky derby. _

_Ezra's curiosity intensified as he heard her response. He'd spent a couple of months in Europe on his year abroad through Hollis College, where he just graduated from. This girl had to be a college student right? She had to be. She looked too mature for a high schooler and too young for a graduate, "Where in Europe?"_

_"__Iceland."_

_"__I spent some time in Reykjavik on my way Amsterdam. It's a great city."_

_She smiled ever so slightly, biting her bottom lip as she looked at him up and down, her gaze intensifying by each passing moment, "So, do you go to Hollis?"_

_He returned the smile with one of his own taking a place on his soft lips, all of his pearly white teeth flashing back at her and he watched her cheeks as they soon turned to a light shade of pink; a color that had never seemed so beautiful to Ezra before that moment, "Just graduated. I'm about to start my first teaching job."_

_"__I think I'd like to teach."The girl responded, her grin widening as their conversation progressed. There was a pause between the two of them and when a familiar began to play on the jukebox and streamed a beautiful melody. Then Isaac Slade, the lead singer of one of Ezra's favorite bands,__The Fray,__began to sing. He smiled softly. He recognized the song immediately from their first album. _

_She must have recognized it as well because next, she softly said, her words almost inaudible, "I love this song."_

_Wanting to make a bit of an impression with her, he licked his bottom lip and nodded, "B-26." Their gazes shot up to meet again, one grin reflecting another and he could not stop staring at how amazingly beautiful those hazel orbs of her eyes were. They drowned him like the crashing and rushing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, dragging him under until he couldn't breathe any longer. At last, he was finally able to pull himself back up to the surface, gasping for air. "So, what's your major?"_

_She hesitated for moment before hurriedly replying and he wondered if he had been too forward. He didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable with him. He really liked this girl, "Well, I'm thinking about majoring in English."_

_"__That's what I'm teaching." His grin widened. _

_Another incredibly wide smirk graced her already stunning face and she added to her previous statement, "Well, I write, too. But so far it's mostly personal. Just for me."_

_Ezra slightly nodded in understanding, knowing exactly what this stranger with the pretty hazel eyes was talking about, "I'm impressed."He was a striving author himself. He only had a few online entries to his name and he wished a publisher would just give him a chance already. But he was constantly being turned down, leaving him with little hope. _

_The girl asked with a tiny giggly tone to the edge of her voice, "Why?"_

_He shrugged and simply replied as he moved from his seat to the cool empty bar stool that sat right beside hers, his body facing hers completely, not minding being so open with her. He felt a strong connection to her already, "Well, I tried writing. I didn't get very far. You're lucky. If you're writing for yourself, it's pure passion." He had his eyes linger on her mouth, feeling such a stronger desire to kiss her at that moment, before meeting her gaze again, "Maybe you'd let me read some of yours?"_

_"__You really want to?"_

_"Yeah." He said with a warm tone to his voice and another smile pulling at the corners of his lips, "You're smart, you've travelled." He glanced up at the speakers of the pub that was still pouring out the lyrics to Happiness, "Great taste in music!" They both shared a laugh before he continued, his gaze resting affectionately on her face, "I'd like to know more about you."_

_She bit her bottom lip before responding, looking at him up and down again, making him feel like a prized piece of meat, "Yeah. I'd like to know more about you, too."_

_**Present time. June 23**__**rd**__**, 2011. **_

Aria looked over at him with those gorgeous hazel eyes of hers that had captured her on the first day that they had met all those months and days ago in September. She smiled slightly, her face still paler than it normally was, "Why do you keep staring at me?" Her voice was rough as if she wanted to cry.

He pushed himself to his feet from his seat and walked to her side of the kitchen table. He took her hands in both of his own and made her look at him straight in the eyes. He kissed the tops of them and then sighed, "Aria, what is making you so miserable? Please tell me because I'm sitting over there trying to enjoy my breakfast and I can't do that when you're sitting here, wanting to cry." He kneeled down and pressed his forehead onto his girlfriend's lap, "So, tell me what I can do so then I can fix it."

"Ezra." He looked up and immediately found his girlfriend's mouth on his as if to silence him from his pleas for her to tell him what was wrong. He tried to pull away, but she tied her long fingers into his curly dark brown hair, keeping him in the kiss. He was thrown off on how rushed and angry her lips were against his. He wondered he had done something to upset her, but he couldn't think of anything. She had been perfectly fine the previous night when she came over. _What is making her so upset and why won't she tell me what's wrong? Maybe I can fix it or at least make it easier for her to bear. I don't want the woman I love to be so miserable. _

He was finally able to pull away and he opened his eyes to find Aria crying, tears rolling like rainfall down her cheeks. He felt her shaking and something inside of him just broke at the sight of her so broken. He was scared for her. He wanted to fix her and make her happier. He wanted her to stop worrying about everyone else but herself. He wanted to love her enough so then she could feel like she could come to him about anything and everything on her heart. He didn't want to see her like this anymore. He didn't want her to cry any more tears, He didn't want her to wake up screaming in the middle of the night out of fear from –A and Ali and Maya's murderers.

Ezra took Aria into his arms and held her, feeling her cling to him as if he were the only stable thing in her life that she could hold on to without feeling like she had to let go before she wanted to. He felt tears soaking his shirt, but he didn't care. It could be washed and fixed and sewn back together again. A young woman as broken as Aria Montgomery couldn't be as easily fixed. It would take time for her to trust again, to not walk down the street with the need to look over her shoulder. He wanted to make her feel safe again. He wanted to help fix her.

He murmured comforting words into ear, softly singing the lyrics to _Happiness_, letting her know that he was right there to help her through anything that she was going through, _"Happiness is just outside my window.. Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour? Or is happiness a little more like knocking on your door and you just let it in. __Happiness feels a lot like sorrow. Let it be, you can't make it come or go. But you are gone- not for good but for now. Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good."_ He kissed her hair, each lock individually until her soft cries were shimmered down to shudders, "I love you, Aria. I'm always here for you. Never forget that."

She pulled back and he whimpered when he saw her eyes were bloodshot from crying. He wiped some of the tears away as she whispered, her words barely audible, "I love you, too, Ezra." She swallowed hard and put her head on his shoulder, He rubbed the small of her back comfortingly, "I just want to make you happy. Please never leave me."

A thorn stuck in his throat and he struggled to not let his own stinging tears to fall from the sorrow in his girlfriend's voice, "You'll make me happy by being happy." He pulled away and leaned his forehead against hers, his husky breath as he murmured softly, "_I'm never leaving you again, Aria. Never again. When you turn around I'm always going to be here to catch you when you fall. You'll always have me, Aria. Forever and always is how long we have and that's how long I'm going to be here for you."_

Right then, something deep inside of him told him that what was upsetting her was completely different and apart from –A and a murderer of two of her friends. Something that was way bigger than any of that. Something that wouldn't be as easy to get over. Something that could jeopardize everything in their relationship.

Something that could put one of their lives into danger.

**This story is going to be a challenge for me to write since I, myself, have never gone through it. It's going to be an eye opener and a great story about what a relationship is truly about: patience, support and unconditional love no matter what the two people go through together as a couple.**

**Be warned that future chapters will be graphic and full of imagery of realistic themes. So, if you're not into that, I would stop reading after chapter one. **

**I hoped all of you enjoy the first chapter. Don't forget to review and tell me what you thought! The second chapter will be up as soon as I can get the time between my other two active stories. Thanks so much for reading!**


	2. The Seed and its Growing Roots

**Thin Skin and Barely Bone: Chapter 2**

**The Seed and its Growing Roots**

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_Beauty is not caused. It is.  
~ Emily Dickinson_

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From a young age, little girls look at the covers of magazines of young and beautiful women with large chests and slender bodies, not a flaw in any part of them. As those little girls grow up, some may want to follow the example of those models on the covers of magazines such as _Cosmo, Seventeen, _and _InStyle. _They would do almost anything to acquire the same figure as their "role models" who probably started with that same cycle. And it goes on and on with generations of young women trying to fit into society's expectations for them.

Aria had never really been one of those little girls. Sure, she wished she was as large chested as Sofia Vergara or as luscious legs as Carrie Underwood, but growing up as a pre-teen, she didn't look to stick thin fashionistas as her inspirations. She had been raised to be an individual. She had been raised to be herself. Her parents had made her that promise that they would let her be who she wanted to be; though they somewhat regretted that now since she was now dating her former English teacher. But it was partially their fault because they always tried to make sure that she was raised to be who she wanted to be and that's what it entitled. She wanted to be with Ezra. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and for a seventeen year old girl, it was a huge statement to make. She was in love with the man, though. He had her heart in his hands. She trusted him with everything and anything.

Except for the fact that she was now becoming one of those little girls looking at the pretty and thin women on the cover of magazines. She was becoming who she never wanted to be. She was becoming someone who wished she could be anyone else but herself. _She didn't want to feel this way. She didn't ask for this. __**Yet she hated herself more and more every day as the summer went on…**_

Over a week passed since Aria received the daunting text from –A. She'd stopped eating almost completely, apart from a few unsalted sunflower seeds and a few bites of the sandwiches Ezra would make for her to eat at lunch. Even the thought of her eating food made her sick to her stomach, but she knew that she had to keep a strong face for her boyfriend; if she didn't, he would be even more paranoid and worried about her than he already was. He would think that she was insane and send her home to her parents, telling them all about what she was doing. It would only start a chain reaction and her life would fall apart even more. People already judged her enough for being in a relationship with Ezra and for all of the times that she and her friends had been suspects of Alison's murder. In a small town, especially a dysfunctional one like Rosewood, news traveled fast and it would be in the newspaper if people found out that a girlfriend to a former high school English teacher had an eating disorder.

When she did eat dinner, Aria had to do her very best to keep it down. The taste and feeling of food going down her throat only reminded her of where it was going to end up; in her stomach, thighs, butt, hips. She didn't want to get any heavier than she already was. She wanted to shed the weight as quickly and secretly as possible. Then by the time she got back to school in two months, she would be way better shape than what she was in when she said goodbye to her classmates at the end of May. Plus, Aria wanted to be able to kiss and have sex with Ezra without wondering what he really thought of her. She knew that he only told her that she was beautiful to boost her self-esteem. She knew that he really wished he could be with someone prettier and thinner than her. She knew that he only came back in March to make sure that she didn't drown her sorrows in ice cream and cake in the wake of his absence.

So, in addition to not eating hardly anything at all, she did something else to help her shed some weight. The troubled young woman would get up in the middle of the night while Ezra was asleep in a chuckling slumber that not even a trumpet being played by a soldier could wake him up from his dreams, Aria snuck off into the apartment bathroom and would use a hidden toothbrush that sat in a tissue box on top of the bathroom supply cupboard, shoving it down her throat to make herself throw up. The bile would burn only for a moment, but the feeling of knowing that she was doing this to make Ezra happy to call her his girlfriend chased it away, replacing it with the feelings that she felt for him. She couldn't even stand the thought of him being unhappy because she didn't look the way he wanted her to, the thought of him wishing that he could be with someone else besides her; someone pretty like his ex, Jackie Molina or her old babysitter, Simone.

Aria wasn't going to let the only stable thing in her life slip away because she looked like a hippo. She wasn't going to let Ezra feel like she wasn't good enough for him. She was going to do everything she could to keep him in her life, even if she ended up being nothing but skin and bone. Hey, in her eyes, it was better than being a water buffalo walking down the street, holding the hand of a beautiful man who was embarrassed to be with her in public.

_I'm going to changed that, though. _Aria thought to herself almost every day. _Soon, he won't be cringing every time he looks at me. Soon he'll be able to see a beautiful woman who he actually wants to be with for the rest of his life. Soon he's going to fall in love with same girl he met last September. That skinny, long haired beauty who caught his eye in the bar. __**I'm going to be that person again. I'm going to be the girl who he fell in love with again. **_

On the night of July 4th, after going to a barbecue and a firework show at her friend Spencer's house with her, Hanna, and some other kids from Rosewood High, Aria headed over to Ezra's apartment which was her home away from home. She was practically living with him and though her father protested her spending the night, he didn't object when she called him and told him that she wouldn't be coming home that night. She knew that he knew that Ezra was the only guy in her life who she could trust and be completely comfortable with. Byron wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of his daughter being with his former colleague and friend who was seven years her senior, but he knew that if he tried to tear the two apart again, it would damage his relationship with Aria. It was always made very clear in February when they told her parents about their relationship that they were in it for the keeps and Aria would always choose Ezra if they tried to forced them apart again. So, to prevent her from running off to Louisiana and eloping with Ezra at Marti Gras during spring break, her family was forced to grudgingly accept the terms of their relationship.

Driving to the apartment, which only took five minutes, Aria stopped at one of the red lights and rubbed her eyes. She had been feeling exhausted for the past four days and she assumed that it was because there were hardly any grams of proteins in her body. At the barbecue, Spencer had noted her distant look and her pale complexion. She assumed that her best friend hadn't been feeling well and she told her to go back home, meaning going to Ezra's so then he could take care of her if she was sick. She shook her head and as she waited for the light to turn green, she reflected on her conversation with Spencer. Was she already beginning to show signs of losing weight? _I've only been doing this for a week and a half. Would the effects really show up this early? Maybe it's just my body adjusting to the less amount of calories I'm taking in. _

Her phone buzzed, alerting her that she had a text message. She took it out of the cup holder and unlocked it, looking at what it could be. Her face drained to a pale white complexion and her breathing began to deepen. She glanced up at the traffic light that was still red. Tears pricked her eyelids and she wiped them away quickly as she forced herself to read the text message"

_From: Unknown_

_Remember two summers ago, sweetie? Checking out Noel Kahn at the beach and Ali making that comment that got you into such a big argument with her? Well, maybe she was telling the truth. Not maybe. She was being a good friend by telling you the truth. _

_I must say it's way more fun to watch you torture yourself than for me to torture you. It saves a lot of my precious time._

_-A_

_PS You're not fooling anyone. _

The green light was shining through the windshield, blinding Aria through her tears that filled the hazel depths of her eyes. She heard honking horns behind her, waiting for her to pull forward. She put her phone back into the cup holder and pulled forward slowly, trying not to let the unshed tears fall from her eyes. _–A has been watching me ever since the first text they sent me over a week ago. They must know what I'm doing in order to lose the weight. It must be __**so entertaining **__for them, watching me torture myself more than they torture me, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily. Well, I'm partially glad that they pointed this out to me. At least now I can be more careful and efficient when it comes to losing it. It's not like once I've lost the weight I won't be able to stop. I have __**some **__self-control._

As she continued on her path to the apartment, Aria turned her attention to the other half of the text. She remembered all those days ago when Ali was still alive and the five girls were lying on the beach over on the northeastern part of town. They were just upcoming freshman with not a care in the world. Those were the days when Aria liked guys her own age; the days when Ezra had been in college. She still had the pink stripe in her hair and was the typical awkward fourteen year old girl when it came to her crush. Noel Kahn: smart, cute, rich. He had it all. Except for the fact that she existed. Sure, Ali was one of the most popular and beautiful girls in Rosewood, but Aria and the other girls were her lap dogs, her followers, her puppets. She had control over what they did and what they said. No one paid attention to the other four when Alison DiLaurentis was in the middle. Especially not when it came to young teenage boys going through puberty and was just learning what exactly that entitled.

And Ali made sure that none of the girls had a chance with the boys she liked. Or with any who _they _sported a crush on _**unless they had her approval**_.

_**Two years and two days earlier. July 2nd, 2009.**_

_There he was. Noel Kahn splashing in the water in the middle of a chicken fight with Sean Ackerd and two of his other buddies. He was laughing that adorable laugh. He was smiling that flirtatious smile. He was flexing those beautiful muscles in his biceps as he struggled to stay on Sean's shoulders, putting the other teenage boy into the water with a triumphant push. He laughed and hopped down, high fiving his friends as he glanced over to the girls underneath the umbrella._

_Aria immediately looked away, her cheeks heating up. Alison caught her staring and giggled, announcing to the rest of the group, "Oh, look at Aria checking out the hot bod of Noel." The other girls laughed and Aria's cheeks heated up even more and her friend added, sneaking a glance at her crush with a mischievous smile, "I could get him over here if you want me to."_

"_Ali, you don't need to do that-"_

"_Oh come on. You need some man candy in your life. You're such a sour patch sometimes. See, the sun is literally dimming and it's killing my mood. Let me get Noel over here so you two can talk."_

_Hanna added in, sitting up straight underneath her baggy t-shirt that she refused to take off while the rest of her friends wore nothing but bikinis, "Only if Sean tags along. Imagine, Aria! If I dated Sean and if you dated Noel, we could have double dates and game nights and-"_

"_Stop doting over the preacher's son, Hanna! You'll never be able to lose your v-card with him as a boyfriend. Go after someone more daring." She laughed and turned to her friend on the other side, "Speaking of being daring….Aria, stop being such a prude. Go over there and talk to him. You know what? I'll just pull you there. It could help you to throw you into water filled with a great white with only a cage to protect you. And, honey, I am that cage. So, come on. Let's get a move on here!" Ali hopped up, her magnificent, perfect and luscious blonde hair bouncing against her shoulders as she tugged Aria's towel towards the water where Noel was. _

_Great, now he was staring at them._

_She pleaded with her friend to stop pulling her, "Ali, stop! I don't want to talk to him. I don't even know how to talk to him. He's _Noel Kahn. _He has no idea that I even exist. Why would he want to talk to me? I'm that weird gothic girl who put a pink stripe in her hair, remember?" She snuck a glance at Noel who was looking right back at her with a curious and confused look on his face. He said something to his friends and started to walk their way. Her heart began to pound, "Ali…"_

"_Stay calm and watch the master fisherman at work. We have a fish on the line." She winked at Aria._

_Before her friend could say anything, Noel stopped in front of them with a raised bushy eyebrow at Alison, "Ali, are you trying to drown this poor victim of yours?" He gestured towards Aria, whose cheeks heated up, "The cute ones are always the most evil aren't they?" He winked at Ali and knelt down to be face to face with the young girl with the pink cheeks and hair, "You let me know if she tries to get you in the water again and I'll throw her n myself. Hopefully you won't drown, but no promises. I don't think blondes know how to swim without a mirror being glued to the bottom of the lake."_

_She nodded slowly as he stood straight and turned to Ali again, who wasn't taking his threat seriously. Her eyes sparkled as if she'd just received a challenge, "Is that an invitation or a threat?"_

_Noel shrugged with a mischievous smile, "Depends how you look at it, DiLaurentis." He backpedaled back into the lake, never taking his sparkling blue eyes off of the blonde, "Make that a threat. I wouldn't invite you anywhere."_

"_Very funny, Noel. You can go be gay with your friends now." The two stared at each other and Ali obviously intimidated him because he broke eye contact while muttering curse words that were clearly directed at her. As soon as he was out of hearing range, she plopped back onto her lawn chair, "That boy needs to learn that no one messes with me or my friends without feeling the backlash later on."_

_Spencer raised an exasperated eyebrow in the blonde's direction, "What was that all about? It sure did escalate quickly."_

_Alison shrugged, brushing off the question with a flip of her hair as she turned back to Aria who was still moony-eyed on her towel, staring off in the distance at Noel, "You're welcome, Aria. You know have a Kahn in shining armor." _

_Her head snapped back to meet the green eyes of her friend, her own gaze blazing flashing embers of hazel in her direction, "I told you not to bring him over here! You made me look like an idiot."_

"_Honey, you do that all by yourself when you're being such a shy little school girl. Boys are like dogs. Distract them with a bone and you control them with a whip. They're not that complicated." She laughed and the other girls joined in, but warily looked at Aria as she became more and more angry. Before she could say anything, Alison added, "And trust me, you don't need my help to make you look like an idiot. You seem to doing that so well on your own with that middle school pink highlight and the push-up bikini top even though there isn't a whole lot to push up."_

_Emily tried to cut in, "Ali, I don't think-"_

_Aria cut her off by getting to her feet, "You're such a bitch!"_

_The other girls fell silent as she drew nearer to Alison, who was staring her down, as she continued, "I asked you as a friend not to get him over here and you completely ignored me **as always. **You can't control everything I do, Ali. You have no power over me."_

_Her friend thought about this for a moment before she stood up again and whispered into Aria's ear, "I wish I could control everything you do. Like how much you eat. Be careful, Aria, You don't want to wind up like Hefty Hanna over there. "She pulled away as she watched Aria freeze and smiled, patting her shoulder, "I do have control over you. You see how quickly you just shut up? I created you. I created all of you. And I can destroy you if I really want to."_

_Spencer finally piped up, "Okay, Ali. That's enough of the banter for now. There's no need to be in this argument. Let's just enjoy the summer day."_

_Hanna nodded in agreement, struggling as she tried to push herself up to her feet, "Does anyone want to come with me to get some ice cream?"_

_Ali replied with a smile, "I will, Hanna! I'll make sure that you don't tub dive for it." She laughed at her own joke with another stern glance at Aria, reminding her that no matter she did, she would never beat her. She would never beat Alison DiLaurentis at her own game. No one could. **She had control over everyone. **_

_**Present time. July 4th, 2011.**_

That's where it had actually begun; the feelings of guilt and self-hatred in terms of the looks of her body started with that one comment about her weight. Ali had planted a seed that had needed water for two years and now, even from the grave, she was getting what she wanted: control. Aria had completely forgotten about that day because she had forced herself to. She pushed it off to the back of her mind where the seed began to grow into a root. A root of poison that was now destroying her as it was webbing across her entire life.

-A knew that, so that's why they brought it up in the first place.

Aria tried to gather up her emotions as she pulled into her normal parking place on the curb of the street across from the apartment building. Ezra's light on the third floor was on and she could see him standing on the balcony outside, waiting for her. His face lit up as she got out of the car and headed for the building. Soon he disappeared and she knew that he was going to meet her at the door before she could even touch the buzzer.

Sure enough, the door opened and two urgent lips met hers as soon as her feet touched the front steps of the apartment building. She felt his whole body untense as he leaned against the doorframe, his lips moving physically with hers, his fingers playing with the hem of her American Flag designed blouse. She twirled her fingers into the curls of his dark brown hair, cementing herself against him. They hadn't seen each other since early that morning and they were obviously making up for the lost time.

Ezra chuckled, virtually breaking the moment as he slowly pulled away from her, blinking those adorable big blue eyes at her, "Now that was worth waiting fourteen hours for. How was the barbecue? Did Spencer try to mix any chemicals at all to make firecrackers to celebrate the holiday?"

She shook her head with a smile as he led them to the elevator that was still open, awaiting them. Ezra and her friends had a very unique relationship; especially with Spencer. He appreciated that they were accepting of their relationship, but they often cracked jokes at his expense when Aria was in the room, "Not quite. The food was good though." She lied as if she had actually eaten at the party. She had a breath mint and a glass of water, but that was it.

He raised an eyebrow at her as he leaned her against the wall of the elevator, his musky breath on her face, "So, you're not hungry? Because," His hand trailed down to her thigh where it remained, causing her skin to crawl with goose bumps, "I warmed up some leftovers from last night for dinner. And I did it without causing harm to myself, the apartment, or more importantly, to my lips so I can still kiss you" He pressed his mouth against hers just as they reached their floor. He sighed and pulled away, "The elevator is such a cockblock sometimes." He winked at her and took her hand as he led her to his apartment, "So, are you hungry?"

She could deny it. But then at the very moment, at the smell of the food that was making her wanting to throw up, her stomach growled, indicating that she was hungry. Ezra laughed and kissed her again, "I'll get the table ready. Just relax and unwind. I'm serving you tonight." He smiled sweetly at her and went into the kitchen to gather plates and silverware while the microwave beeped.

Aria plopped down on the couch, watching him hustle around the kitchen. She didn't deserve an amazing boyfriend like him. She knew what she was going to do while he was asleep. Sneak into the bathroom, grab the toothbrush, and feel the vomit rush through her throat. Guilt struck her. He never tried to make her dinner. He always ordered Thai takeout or had her take care of it. He didn't trust himself to cook because he barely knew how to make French toast, let alone a three course meal.

_He's working so hard trying to make sure I'm taken care of. He's cooking, or sort of cooking, doing my laundry and making sure I have everything I need when I stay here. If he ever finds out what I've been doing, will he ever look at me the same way? He'll blame himself for my problem. He can never find out. It would destroy him and everything he's done for us. _

_**It would destroy what we have together.**_

* * *

A noise of coughing and gagging coming from the bathroom awoke Ezra from his slumber. He rubbed his eyes and opened them to find that Aria wasn't in her normal spot beside him. The sheets were cold as if she hadn't been in bed all night when he distinctively remembered his arms being around her when he fell asleep that night. _It's only two in the morning on a summer day. Why in the hell is she awake? _He pushed himself to his feet sleepily, wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts.

He saw the light underneath the bathroom door streaming through the creak between the frame and the floor. He lightly tapped on the door, pressing his ear to it. The gagging that he heard just moments earlier was no longer present and he could hear Aria inside ruffling around and flushing the toilet. He softly asked, his voice groggy with sleep, "Ar, baby, are you alright in there?"

"I'm alright, Ezra. Go back to sleep. I'll be there in a couple minutes."

By the tone of her voice, he knew that she wasn't okay. Without asking permission, he opened the door and entered the bathroom, immediately finding her sitting on the toilet with her face in her hands, her forehead sweaty. Her cheeks were pale and her hair was a tangled mess. She looked at him with tearful hazel eyes, "What are you doing in here? Didn't I tell you to go back to bed?"

He shook his head with a sad smirk pulling at the corners of his pink lips, "I'm stubborn and this time, it worked out in my favor." Ezra strode over to his girlfriend and knelt down in front of her, kissing her forehead. It was cool; she didn't have a fever. _Is it food poisoning from earlier? God, if it is, I am blaming myself for making her feel like this, _"You not feeling that well?"

She shrugged and didn't meet his eyes, "I feel fine now. Can I get washed up?" Her voice was sharp and irritated, taking Ezra by surprise. She wasn't ever this snappy with him, "I'll be out in a minute."

He hesitated as he agreed with a nod and retreated back to his bed, leaning up against the pillows. She would tell him if something was really wrong, right? He noted that she hadn't been herself since the end of June; hell, her entire junior year had left her with scars that would take a very long time before she could be declared as healed. Then everything with their relationship had made her extremely stressed out. Hell, it stressed him out.

However, he was out of the realms of petty high school drama, so what was going on with her classmates and their acceptance of her relationship with "Mr. Fitz", their former English teacher, had to be tough on a seventeen year old girl. He often forgot that she was only a young woman, just experiencing the world. He was way more experienced than she was and he needed to have patience when it came to her adapting to every aspect of their relationship.

Finally, Aria shut off the bathroom light and trudged back to their bed, plopping down beside him and curling into her normal spot. He looked at her and she finally met his eyes, "What are you staring at?"

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose as he settled in closer to her, "Well, I'm looking at a beautiful woman lying here beside me in my bed and she won't tell me what's bothering her. Is she sick? Is she stressed? Is experiencing food poisoning from her dumbass of a boyfriend's hodge podge dinner earlier?" He chuckled as he kissed her forehead, lips lingering there on her skin. So if she could tell me what's going on, it would give me a piece of mind to go sleep tonight."

Aria shook her head and kissed him hard as if she was trying to distract him, her hand trailing down his stomach. He responded with sweet pecks as he slowly moved her lips to her neck, softly biting and sucking on the soft skin beneath his mouth. He trailed down to her collarbone where they lingered, his hands teasing the hem of her nightgown shirt. They hadn't had sex in at least two weeks and though he never wanted to pressure Aria into doing something that she didn't necessarily want to do, he was aching for her. Every single part of him was singing for him to take control for once but his will to do what is right commanded him not to.

Ezra finally pulled away and found Aria looking at him with tired and tear-filled eyes. He sighed and pulled her into him. She nestled her face into the crook of his neck and began to shed the tears from her eyes. He was used to this almost every night. He couldn't remember the last time that they were together and she _wasn't _crying. He hated seeing her so broken when there was nothing he could do but hold her and promise her that everything was going to be okay, a promise that he couldn't keep matter-o-factly. That scared him. It scared him to think that nothing he said or did was ever enough to heal the scars that were etched in her heart from all the trauma from the past year.

"I'm here, Aria. Never forget that. I love you. I'm never going to leave you again. You're exactly where I belong." He whispered into her hair, kissing each strand within his reach, "_And it's so hard to say it but I've been here before_. _Now I'll surrender up my heart_. _And swap it for yours." _Ezra smiled as he continued to softly coon the lyrics of "Lego House" by Ed Sheeran, "_I'm out of touch, I'm out of love_. _I'll pick you up when you get down_. _And out of all these things I've done, I think I love you better now_." He held her tightly as he felt her fall asleep, "I love you and I always will. Through whatever we go through together, I'll be at your side, no matter what."

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I've been working on it for a long time and I apologize for such a long wait for an update. I hope the length and time put into it makes it worth the wait, though!**

**This story was based off of a poem I wrote this past spring called "Thin Skin and Barely Bone" when I tried to experience the feelings of having an eating disorder. It will eventually come into play in the story. Like I said before, though, I've never experienced this situation myself; luckily, though, I have a couple of close confidants helping me along the way. They know who they are. Hopefully, it's bringing some light onto this often overlooked subject of eating disorders. **

**Also, if ANYONE ever needs to talk to me, message me on here. Get a hold of me on twitter (CrazyHT4Life) or even send me a message on Tumblr. I am here to write but I am also here for supporting my readers if they're reading this story while they struggle with the same thing or some other kind of self-harm.**

**Thanks to all of you who have reviewed. The first 28 reviews were nothing less than kind and I appreciated all of the feedback I got on chapter 1. I took all the constructive criticism into account and did my best to clear up some things. Thank you for all the kind words as well. Please don't forget to review or give me feedback of some sort. I greatly appreciate it.**

**See you soon!**


	3. The Journey to Impeccable Despair

**Thin Skin and Barely Bone: Chapter 3**

**The Journey to Impeccable Despair**

* * *

_We love the things we love for what they are._

_~ Robert Frost_

* * *

_**July 18**__**th**__**, 2011**_

Adults often look at music as noise, a nuisance, something that their children use to drown them out. However, to teenagers and young adults, lyrics to heartbreaking melodies and the core shaking rumble in the singer's throat with the background of just an acoustic guitar, music is often the only thing that gets them through every day. When going through rough times, the music numbs the feeling of pain, the feeling of fear, the feeling of anger. It makes everything disappear and seem unimportant. Music was the only reliable thing, the only sane support for someone who needs something stable in their life. Music was their Superman, their Spiderman, their _hero. _

Ever since September of her junior year, seventeen year old Aria often listened to the lyrics of love songs. Having a man whom she loved more than anything else in the world gave her the urge to listen to every song about a passionate crazy couple where it was them against the world. Because that was what she and Ezra were. They were that couple. They had fought to be together for so long and now everything seemed to be falling into place, a place to where they finally had peace with who they were and what kind of love they had. They were the Romeo and Juliet that didn't end up dead. They were the Noah and Ally that didn't forget each other. They were Ezra and Aria.

_**They were their own crazy love story. **_

Lately, the young woman seemed to be listening to more Evanescence, Janice Joplin, and Coldplay rather than Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber. Her ringtone went from being "Up All Night" by One Direction to "Storm" by Lifehouse. She would only take her headphones off when she went to Ezra's or when she was addressed to take them off. She would often just sit in the Montgomery house and blast heavy metal until her walls vibrated, the urgent knocks of Byron and Mike to tell her to turn it down drowned out by the screams of the lead singers of Memphis Mayfire, Disturbed, and Five Finger Death Punch. The music numbed the self-hatred that she felt burning a hole in her heart every day. Every time she even glanced into a mirror, a window, a toaster, or anything where she could see her reflection, she felt the need to scream, to cry, to be angry and throw her fist in the world to express her passionate self-loathing. She didn't feel comfort in anything anymore. Not even the sense of warmth in Ezra's arms, where she usually felt so at peace and so at home. Now when he did that, she just lied there, knowing what he was thinking; he was wishing that she was easier to hold, that there was less of her taking room on his bed, that she was tinier and prettier, that she was _worth loving. _

Three and a half weeks passed since she received the text from –A and two weeks since the disastrous Fourth of July weekend with Ezra. It had been rather quiet for the past fourteen days and that made her uncomfortable, knowing that when –A was this quiet, nothing ever came well from it. On her end of the arrangement, she now made sure that she was quieter when she stayed over and would get up to throw up what she had in the middle of the night. For as far as he knew, he had only given her food poisoning all those days ago and now refused to cook for her unless it was a frozen TV dinner. He would order Thai takeout or have her cook something simple such as a turkey burger or a tray full of tater tots that she would eat with a smile while feeling her stomach churning. He was clueless to what was really going on; he thought she was still thinking about Mona being –A and the murders of Ali and Maya when, rally, both of those two events were the furthest things from her mind. She almost felt guilty for keeping him in the dark, but the thought of doing this to make him proud of being with her and his happiness in addition to the fear of his reaction was enough to keep her tongue bitten whenever she felt the urge to tell him the truth.

On the early and sunny morning, Aria awoke to the heat of the sun beaming against her face. She picked her head up from her bedroom pillows, stretching and rubbing her eyes in exhaustion. She looked around, half expecting Ezra to be there beside her, chuckling away in his sleep, his flawless body beaming back at him. It was weird not having him beside her when she went to bed and when she woke up in the morning. How did she even get into her bed?

When she was trying to gather her groggy thoughts, she remembered that Ezra had dropped her off at the Montgomery house so then she could have a family night with her father, which was almost too much irony for her to handle since they hardly spoke when she was home; that had resulted in Ezra staying for the event, his girlfriend not wanting him to leave her alone as Byron had wished originally. It had sparked some protest, but he eventually allowed the man to stay, not wanting to begin an argument or sending of his daughter to stay at her boyfriend's one room apartment where he knew they had been physical with each other more than once. The thought of allowing it had made him sick, so he obliged reluctantly, probably regretting it later on when he had to witness them kissing once or twice.

The couple had curled up on the loveseat together, his face buried in her hair and his hand making circles on her thigh, while her father had scowled at the two of them, thinking that the lovebirds entangled with one another didn't notice, from his place on the living room leather couch while the three of them watched _Little Mermaid_, her favorite princess movie from when she was four years old. She envied Ariel's thin body and her ability wear hardly anything at all. Her heart ached at the way that she was able to fit into Eric's arms. Even with Ezra near and close to her, holding her tightly and whispering all of the lines into her ear with a smirk on his lips, she had never felt so alone in her own skin.

About halfway through the animated film, she had fallen asleep with her had on her boyfriend's shoulder, at her favorite part where Eric invited Ariel to go on the canoe with him. The last thing she remembered was her dad telling Ezra to carry her up to her room. She had to wonder how much will power it had taken for stubborn Mr. Byron Montgomery to tell the man who he had once called his friend and then tried to get him arrested, out of Rosewood to New Orleans, and then convinced the dean somehow to remove his position from Hollis, to carry his seventeen year old daughter to an empty bedroom with a bed waiting for her. There had to be at least _some _trust there if he had been willing to do that. Did that mean that he was finally coming terms with the fact that no matter how hard he tried to deny it, Aria was in love with Ezra Fitz, her boyfriend of almost ten months in addition to her former English teacher and was most likely going to be walking her down the aisle down to him? That was a **milestone **for them and all of the people in the situation knew that. Plus, it would give Ezra a bit of a piece of mind since he was raised to always respect the opinion of the woman of which he was dating's father. If Byron was finally coming to terms with it, maybe they could one day a big, happy, and dysfunctional family together.

Then as an afterthought, she imagined how hard it was for Ezra to carry upstairs to her bedroom. He tried to big and strong when it came to listing things, but she could only think of the effort he had to put into not dropping her and letting her roll like an umpa lumpa. She ran her hand through her hair as a sense of despair washed over her, becoming surprised to realize how much thinner it was. Maybe it was a sign of the fact that she was actually becoming somewhat presentable. Maybe her thick brunette hair had been a sign all along that she was…._fat_. She breathed in a heavy sigh before letting it out. _I will become the person that I was when I met Ezra last September. Soon enough he will be able to lift me without effort up a flight of stairs. He'll be able to look at me and say that I'm beautiful without it being so forced. He'll be able to tell people that his girlfriend is the trophy in his eyes instead of someone who goes to his apartment just to eat him out his red velvet cake. One day, when our time comes, he'll be waiting for me down the aisle in a handsome tuxedo, his dark brown curly hair arranged perfectly, with his perfect dark blue eyes rested on me and a smile on those perfect lips, knowing that he is married to the love of his life and he cannot wait until their honeymoon night so then he can rip that wedding dress off of his newly wedded wife's __**perfect **__body and make love to her in a way that only a real man could. I would do anything to make him happy and if it means doing all of this to make that boyish grin spread across his bright and cheery face, I'll keep doing it until I am perfect for him._

Aria pushed herself up to her feet, stretching out her shoulders. She glanced at her alarm clock, realizing that it was late morning. She was in no rush, though. Ezra had an interview in Scranton at eleven and wouldn't be able to see her until later that day. Maybe she could hang out with Hanna and Spencer at the Hastings' home in the hot tub to unwind, relax, and catch up on her girl stuff, or maybe she could go grab a cup of coffee with her mom who lived in an apartment in downtown Rosewood since her parents were getting a divorce in the wake of all that had happened in the past year. It would be weird for her because all summer so far, she hardly had gone anywhere without her boyfriend at her side, holding her hand while she faced the stares by the judgmental Pennsylvanian town. It was scary at the thought of going out without him. She would have to walk down the street without his comfort beside her, the sneers, taunts, and jibes biting and spitting poisonous venom at her as if the words were poisonous snakes. However, maybe she could make the best of it and learn temporarily what it was like before she was blessed with him in her life as her comforter, her savior, her friend, her lover, _**her soulmate. **_

She trudged into her bedroom bathroom and flicked the light switch up, narrowing her eyes against the dim fluorescent bulb glaring down at her with intensity through the reflection of the mirror. When she caught a glance of her reflection, the thorn she had grown used to in the past three and a half weeks started stabbing and tearing through her throat, tears pricking at her eyes. What she saw made bile rise against the walls of her throat.

All she saw was someone who was as round as a ripe blueberry, her blouse from the previous day clinging to her skin, the fabric ready to tear. Her jean shorts felt tighter around her thighs, as did the waist band around her lower torso. Beads of sweat broke along the edge of her hairline, her eyes darting to her stomach, dread spreading throughout her bloodstream as if it were a poison. _**It was bigger. **_How was that even possible? She had hardly eaten anything in the past month other than the occasional sandwich with whole wheat bread and a slab of turkey in the middle or the diet of a handful of sunflower seeds and ten glasses of water each day. And that usually ended up in a toilet in later hours of the night in the wake of expelling the containments that was contained in her vomit.

How could she have _**gained **_weight?

The seventeen year old young woman collapsed against the wall, sliding into a sitting position onto the bone-chilling tile with her knees pressed against her chest. She didn't want to look in the mirror anymore; just the thought of it made her want to dash for the white basin that was just a few feet away from her place on the floor. Her eyes flickered with rapid blinks, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. She breathed in deep breaths in an effort to calm herself and she supported her head with her elbows that rested against her knees. Her breathing was short and ripped with escaping silent sobs. The makeup from the previous day was pouring down the path of her cheeks, leaving behind dark blue and black streaks. She let the tears continue to fall, her shoulders shaking and she dug her fingers into her brunette hair in an expression of an emotional agony. She felt like an absolute failure; for herself, for her family, for her friends, _**for Ezra. **_

There was a knock on her bedroom door and a calling of her name asking her if she was awake yet. Aria cursed beneath her breath. The last thing she wanted was letting her family seeing her anything like this. When she didn't answer, she heard the turn of the knob and quiet footsteps on the floor, a masculine shadow falling over the crack between the door and the floor. Another knock came to it and her heart dropped when she recognized the murmur falling from the man's lips. It was Ezra.

His voice was muffled behind the wood of the door as he called out, "Hey, Aria? Baby, are you in there? I saw your car in the driveway and I'm assuming you're home since your dad told me he hasn't seen you downstairs all morning. And judging by the emptiness of your sheets, I don't think you're sleeping. Unless it's in the bathtub, using the shower curtain as a blanket." He chuckled, a soft rumble that rang in her ears even after moments he let out the chortle of humor as he continued with a smirk in his tone, "Plus, I can see the light in the bathroom, so you might as well let me in." When she still wouldn't answer, his voice became very serious, "Aria, please talk to me. Are you alright? Do you need me to get your dad or something? You're making me crap my pants with worry right now, Ar. Please answer me."

Aria cringed in her place on the floor at the sound of the desperation that his words contained and she finally called back in a loud manner, her voice cracking, "Sorry, Ez! I was brushing my teeth! I just woke up, so I am trying to get ready for the day." She quickly pushed herself up to her feet on shaking legs, refusing to look in the mirror as she aggressively washed her face, drying it with a towel. She didn't want to be the cause of any alarm when she faced Ezra. The sight of her with mascara and eyeliner smeared over her cheeks would make him paranoid and would only lead to more questions that she did clearly not want to answer at the time being.

"My interview was rescheduled. The principal at that high school said that his daughter was having the first grandchild and he made sure to tell me that I will in to see him by the end of July. So, I thought I would come and pick you up and take you somewhere. But since you're running a bit slow this morning…" He answered her with a laugh, his shadow disappearing as he began moving around her bedroom, "Well, I guess I'll just wait for you then." There was a pause before he laughed to himself, "What else is new?" He started to sing along to the absent yet ringing melody of "Waitin' on a Woman" by Brad Paisley, leaving his girlfriend surprised at the fact that he knew that song, especially since he wasn't a huge fan of country music. He said that he sang just because it was his right, never boasting on the fact that the soft bravado of his voice fit beautifully with any lyric that fell from his lips. His singing was one of the few things that could ever comfort her in a time of sadness and pain and he knew that since he sang every time she was upset; so he must have caught onto the fact that she wasn't just brushing her teeth in the bathroom.

"_When I picked her up for our first date_, _I told her I'd be there at eight_. _And she came down the stairs at eight-thirty_. _She said I'm sorry that I took so long_. _Didn't like a thing that I tried on._" Aria could hear the smile in his voice as he continued, "_Yeah she'll take her time but I don't mind. Waitin' on a woman._" He called out to her again, his shoes finally stopping making their away across her bedroom floor, his hyperactive mind making a decision at last where to settle while he waited, "Even though it sometimes takes way too much time, it's worth it in the long run. I guess that's what you do when you're in love…" He trailed off, leaving the words hanging in the air for the effect of the layer of meaning to sink in. He continued to hum along to the song, probably feeling rather proud of himself for being so poetic.

She quickly got dressed in some of the clothes that she had grabbed on her way in; a white Hollis t-shirt of Ezra's that she had stolen from his apartment and cut out the sleeves, the bagginess covering her body with one of the sides tied up, the fabric falling over the basketball shorts sitting on her hips. She brushed out her hair without one glance at the mirror, feeling rather proud of herself as she resisted the temptation to do so. Hoping all of the cleansing of her face was good enough, she reapplied a little bit of the makeup. Nothing more than a little _Foundation_, silvery blue eye shadow and a thin application of mascara. She swiped on some of the deodorant, trying to make up for the fact that she hadn't showered in addition to some of the perfume her dad had bought her for her seventeenth birthday.

After about ten minutes she took in a deep breath, she slowly turned the door knob and opened the door, prepared to seeing him standing at the door with worry in all of his features, his arms ready to encase her in a tight hug as if she needed to be comforted, which she did at the moment. Surprisingly, though, he wasn't.

Aria couldn't help but smile as she saw her boyfriend lying across her bed, his back flat against the mattress with his right leg entangling the top of the left, staring at the ceiling as if he were in a deep thought with his eyebrows creased, his forehead crinkled in concentration. When he heard the door close behind her, Ezra picked up his head, a grin spreading across his cheery face as he sat up, his weight being supported by his elbows, "Hey you."

She made her way over to him, taking a place beside him. He wore a light purple short sleeved dress shirt and a creamy blue tie that really brought out the smoldering indigo depths of the orbs of his cobalt colored eyes. His legs were covered by a pair of khakis hugging his ass and thighs rather nicely, Aria noted with a blush to her cheeks. She teasingly twirled a strand of her hair around her finger as she entangled her other hand with his, the comfort of his presence immediately washing over her; though it was not enough to wash all of the anguish that she been feeling less than fifteen minutes ago when he had shown up.

"Hey, yourself, you country singing cutie." She ran her free hand that wasn't entwined with his through the dark brown curls of his hair that covered his forehead, her cheeks darkening by each passing moment as they lied there on her bed. She knew if her dad walked into her bedroom and saw them like that, he would not be the happiest father in Pennsylvania. That's what made it all the more worthwhile as she moved closer to him, their bodies barely brushing, causing sparks to pass through her, "By the sound of that southern twang on your voice, I half expected you to be in boots and chaps when I walked out of the bathroom."

Ezra rolled his eyes at her comment as he leaned, his lips pursed with a widening smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. His breath made her hair quiver as its muskiness drafted over her being, "Well, that would have been awkward for your dad and me when he answered the door to let me in." He reached out and tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear, his thumb brushing against her cheek, his eyes twinkling with mischief and affection with a hint of lust as he continued in more of a murmur as if she was the only one supposed to hear, "And we both know how respectful I am of the parentals. Thus my place on your bed." They shared a laugh as his lips slowly moved toward hers, brushing against the bottom of her mouth as the top of his came to encase the rest, enveloping together perfectly as if their lips were meant to lock in such a passionate embrace, his tongue slipping into a battleground position as it brushed beneath her top teeth.

It didn't take long for the heat outside the bedroom window to take effect indoors as Ezra slowly pulled Aria on top of him. Fear encased the young woman's stomach as she thought of squishing him underneath her massive body weight. She tried to keep calm as she felt the overwhelming coolness of his hands burrow under the fiber of her shirt, rubbing the bare skin that lied on her spine. She fought to make sure he enjoyed this moment of bliss and he really did seem to with the moaning of pleasure echoing in the walls of her throat as they continued to kiss. Deep down, Aria knew that Ezra loved her and loved doing this kind of thing with her, but she also felt like she wasn't good enough to please him in a sexual or physical way; like he secretly hated every single moment of it.

To bring more to it, she began to play with the waistband of his jeans as he continued to slide his hands slowly on the surface of her back, his hips rising against hers. Before any clothes could be shed, however, her phone went off, revealing her new ringtone to her boyfriend for the first time, the lyrics of the almost acapella melody sang by the raspy voiced Jason Wade pouring through the small speaker of her cell phone.

_**Barely surviving has become my purpose **_

_**Because I'm so used to living underneath the surface**_

_**If I could just see you, everything would be all right.**_

_**If I'd see you, this darkness would turn to light**_**. **

Ezra let out an exasperated sigh as he broke away from her kiss, his breathing heavy as he stuttered out, "Of course. Not the usual auto-toned voices of five adolescent boys who still haven't gone through puberty yet singing about getting laid for the first time before their own boys have dropped, but it's an interruption all the same. Thanks a lot, Lifehouse." He chuckled shakily as he leaned over to grasp the object in his hands and without looking at it, he reached out in order to hand it to her. Just as she went to grab it as she slid back off of on top of him to the inner most part of the bed, he leaned up to give her another long and lingering kiss pressed affectionately against her mouth.

She giggled as she fought to reach up and get it from him. Only when she broke away and snatched it away did she finally have it in her hands. She looked at her boyfriend with a heavy sigh as she fought to regain her breath, "You're such an ass sometimes." He shrugged and went to kiss her neck, his fingers finding a place against her cheeks as his lips moved rhythmically with her skin. She rolled her eyes and grin as she giggled and looked at her screen to see who had been trying to contact her. Her heart that been racing just a moment before stopped at a standstill.

Ezra must have felt her tense up and his mouth murmured against its new place at her collarbone, his hand travelling down to a place where it could rub the back of her thigh, "Everything alright?"

She nodded as she lied, faking a smile, turning her head to where she could press a kiss to the top of his head, "Yeah it's just Emily who apparently just found a way to use her phone in Haiti. She's just checking in with all of us."

He grinned as his lips moved back up to her neck, kissing it lovingly, "Well, tell her I say hello."

"I will!" She replied, ruffling his hair and turned back to the message on her screen. Her eyes dissected each and every word:

_From: Unknown_

_Hey Aria! Looks like it's not working as well as you thought since it looks like you gained a couple pounds. But the good news is that Fitzy is still trying to sleep with you. Then again it doesn't say a lot; teachers who date their students are often more __**needy **__if you know what I mean. Don't forget to use protection. Babies often add more weight when you get pregnant and it's a bitch to work off. _

_-A. _

_PS Exercise may help!_

Ezra picked his head up and tried to look at the text. His girlfriend quickly locked it by flicking off the backlight with one press to the on button at the top of the device, slipping it into one of her pockets. He narrowed his blue eyes as he locked gazes with her, "Is there something that you didn't want me to see?" He wasn't mad, just curious.

She shrugged, her voice raising snappily as she slid to the end of the bed and stood, "It's just girly stuff. Do I ask you what Hardy texts you when I'm around. Um, how about no?" He winced at the sting her tone and she sighed before going to stand in front of his place now sitting on the edge of the mattress, "I'm sorry. Emily is just so far away and it's hard for the four of us to be apart after everything that's happened this year."

He nodded in understanding before tipping his head to the side, his face creased with confusion and worry, "Understandable. I just have to wonder if that's entirely what's going on. Ever since the end of the June, you've been extremely hormonal and moody not to mention snappy and jumpy every time I'm around." He paused before continuing rather hesitantly, "I just want to say _again _that I am always here when you need me. I think you're pushing me away and not telling me something. I trust you, Aria and I love you, but sometimes I feel like you don't completely trust me. And that's understandable after everything _you've _gone through this past year. But then again I thought you'd be able to feel like you can rely on me after everything _we've _been through since September."

She began to stammer, "I don't-I don't know how you can say that to me, Ezra. Of course I trust you! I trust you with my life. I've told you everything." There was another lie and she hated it and the way it burned in the walls of her throat, "Please don't feel like I'm pushing you away. I hate the thought of the doing that to you."

He sighed but nodded, standing and pressing a kiss to her forehead before nuzzling it with his nose and pulling her into a tight hug. After a moment and a heavy breath, he pulled away, tucking another lock of her hair behind her ear, "I love you so much." Before she could even think of replying, he slipped his hand into her palm, enveloping their fingers together as he led her out of her room, "We can continue this conversation in the park over a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito."

She nodded, trying not to think of the greasy fat that encased a breakfast burrito from the new coffee shop in Rosewood, the bile threatening to begin the rise in the burning walls of her throat, "Alright, I'm fine with that." She quickly grabbed her purse and keys before closing the door behind her, heading down the small flight of carpeted stairs in the Pennsylvania Victorian home, holding the hand of the man she loved.

What she had seen in the mirror in the bathroom that the two of them left behind glaring evilly in the faint light of the party cloudy sky in the clammy July afternoon was something that spat lies at her through the dull hazel eyes that sat in the hallowing sockets. She saw what her mind had wanted her to see. Every time she looked into the mirror, she saw the seed that Alison had planted and what –A had watered. She saw the lies, the guilt, and the disgust laughing at her from behind the perspective of a slab of glass glued to the wall. She didn't see what it was doing to her.

What Aria didn't see and how she was portrayed to her loved ones and other people in Rosewood was the truth that she refused to condemn herself with. The causes of not eating and throwing up whatever food surprisingly made it to the small containments of her stomach were beginning to show already after almost a month of the practices becoming dangerous habits. They were beginning to show in a harsh reality of the sad unknown truth. Her face was much thinner than it had been before she had gotten the first text from –A about her "eating problem". Her cheeks were somewhat sunken with no color to them at all, leaving behind almost a snowy cream in the place of the slightly tanned blush that she had had just four weeks before. The lining of the tension was beginning to stretch tightly against the skin of her jaw. Her hair fell limply against her shoulders, a lot of its dark auburn color gone from its locks. Underneath her blouse, her collarbones stuck out as if the thin barrier of her clammy skin was not even there upon her shoulders, making her seem gaunt and fragile. Further down her small framed torso, her stomach was flat against her jutting ribs that seemed to stretch through her skin, threating to burst through to escape the tension of the tightness of her body that was compressing itself within its own walls.

It resembled her heart screaming the truth through the race of fast paced heartbeats, labored from hunger, guilt, and ache that was being pumped through every drop of blood in her body, spreading as if it were venom. However, underneath all that rubble and pain that was set between each agonizing beat, there was something that lied beneath it. It was the only thing that was keeping her heart going without a falter in its race. It was a rose in a sea of thorns. It was a diamond in a pile of coals. It was _**love. **_

_**It was the love that she had for Ezra Fitz.**_

* * *

The reflection of the sunlight gleamed in the dark blue depths of Ezra's eyes as he slowly strolled along the granite path of the Rosewood Community Park, holding the hand of the woman he loved. He looked over at Aria, receiving a warm smile coming from her direction before she disconnected their gazes by looking around the peaceful and quiet nature path that they currently walking upon. There were kids playing on the slides and swing sets while their mothers watched them while they exchanged the latest gossip with the other women around them. Men talked to other men about the MLB playoff rankings, work, and cars. It was an extremely hot mid-July summer day, but at least it had a steady breeze among the leaves of the trees, whistling in the ears of anyone who would stop and listen to it.

The public affection in the small town was odd for Ezra and Aria. Even months after they had gone public at that masquerade ball, they still had the tendency of being hesitant when walking together in Rosewood, let alone holding hands and kissing. They weren't used to it yet and they probably never would be. After months of hiding and sneaking around, they were used to the idea of going to Philly or staying in his apartment to watch old movies and eat one of the three things he knew how to cook without poisoning everything and everyone who ate his food.

As the blissful couple walked along the path with his girlfriend's arm twined around his in a loop, her hand then entwining with his, Ezra almost regretted doing what he did earlier that morning after he had learned that his interview was cancelled. He hadn't known what else to do. He'd been panicking for the past two weeks ever since he walked in on her sick after the Fourth of July. He could be in big, big trouble if what he was thinking was true. Byron would probably have him thrown in prison and he would never be able to step up and do what he had to do to support Aria.

She would have the most trouble dealing with it at seventeen as a young woman who already had way too much on her plate. Why would he ruin her life like this? Hadn't he already done enough damage by putting her through hell by being with him? This would only put gasoline on the raging fire that went through this judgmental Pennsylvanian town. That was if what he was thinking was true, but what else would explain her erratic behavior and snappy attitude whenever he walked into the room? The raging hormones that would either make her kiss him or jump into a pissed off frenzy where she bit his head off when he asked her a simple question or perhaps just wanting to kiss her.

Then there were all the times she snuck off in the middle of the night to throw up, thinking that he couldn't hear her and that he was asleep. He would listen to her gag and cough before expelling the vomit from her body. She had lost weight, too; her hand was bony in his grasp and her ribs almost seemed to stick out of her t-shirt as she walked along with him on the gravel path, her head brushing against his shoulders, her hair much thinner than it had been in the beginning of the summer. Even when he had gone to her house the previous night and carried her to bed, she was way too light for his comfort and he had almost talked to her dad about it, but changed his mind at the last second and left. Her cheeks had lost their color and those beautiful hazel eyes that had once glimmered with such a twinkle of warmth and affection were dull and uninterested in everything; even when they were together. She looked miserable and lost in the chaos of her own mind. He sometimes heard her crying in her sleep. He knew that had been what she was doing when he picked her up earlier. She had been sitting on the bathroom floor, with her knees to her chest, choking out sobs. And the thought of it made him want to cry himself.

Because he _**knew**_ it was his fault.

Soon the two of them came to a stop along a little walking bridge over a small flowing stream that led to the lake on the edge of town. The forest broke up the fragments of sunlight that glittered brightly against the water. The birds chirped, the frogs would ribbited, the squirrels and chipmunks chased each other in a game of tag. The cloudy sky had cleared to where was nothing, but a clear blue ocean across as far as the eye could see. It was the perfect summer day. Which was exactly why it was the best moment to talk to Aria. If something was going great, Ezra had the tendency of screwing everything up for himself and for other people.

He leaned against the railing of the bridge beside his girlfriend, his eyes shadowed and creased against the glare of the sun, "Aria? I need to talk you about something and I think it's important that we both keep calm since we're in a public place." That was also one of the reasons why he had chosen the place he did. It was quiet and they were completely alone on the bridge, their secrets kept safe in the barrier that the trees gave to them, as if they were enclosing them and keeping them safe from the public eye.

She looked over at him, pushing her sunglasses above her eyebrows so then they could lock gazes, "Yes?" When he didn't respond right away, trying to find the right words, she rolled her eyes, "Is this about what we talked about earlier? Ezra, I told you. I've told you everything that you need to know, if not more. This is the perfect day and I don't feel like getting into this argument again. I trust you, you trust me. We love each other. We're completely honest with each other. I know things have been tense because of everything that has gone down in the past three or four months, but I want you to stop-" She stopped as she watched him slowly take out a small box from one of the pockets on his khakis and her eyes went wide as she released what it was, "What the hell, Ezra?" Tears filled her eyes, threatening to overwhelm her and she turned to hurry away from him.

Ezra stopped her by grabbing her wrist and gently pulled her back, causing her to stumble into him, "Aria, I need to know for sure and so do you. We've been having sex since March and I know we haven't always been the most careful because of how carried away we sometimes get. You know that too!" She tried to fight to get away from him, but he had too well of a grip on her arms for her to break free, keeping her to him, "You've been sick for over a month. Don't think that I don't hear you in all hours early in the morning. I know you've been lying to me about it." When she didn't respond other than her cheeks flushing a pale white, he continued gently, loosening his grip on her a little bit, "I love you and I want to be here for you every step of the way. I want you to know that. Everything that you choose to do, I am behind you on. I just want you to be honest with me. Please be honest! That's all I'm asking of you!"

She finally locked gazes with him, "I can't believe it. After all I've done for you this past month, this is what happens! I knew if you figured it out you would hate me. I'm only doing it to make you happy, Ezra! That's all I have ever wanted for you is to be happy! Now look where we are!"

"What are you talking about? Are you telling me you terminated the pregnancy?"

"You idiot! I'm not pregnant! I was never pregnant! But from what I can tell, I look as round as a pregnant woman, so I might as well be having your children, right? I mean, I'm already the girl who has sex with every authoritative figure, suspected to killed her best friend, and is just a downright disgrace for a human being, so why not be pregnant?" Aria took the pregnancy test box and looked at it before she threw it on the ground and stomped on it angrily, screaming and yelling at it.

Terror struck Ezra as he listened to her ramble on and on about how she might as well be pregnant since she already does everything else wrong. When she was finally done, he looked at her with confusion and fear clearly written on his beat red face, "Aria, what are you going on about?"

"Let go of me." When her boyfriend didn't oblige with her command, she started hitting his chest in tear streaked fury, "Let me go! **Let me go! **_**Let me go!" **_Out of fear, Ezra finally released her from his grasp and he watched as she ran off the way they had come from the park, not looking behind her, her sandals clicking against the wood of the bridge before she struggled to take off in a full blown run as she shouted out without looking back, "_**Don't follow me!**__"_

He didn't follow her. He watched her. He watched her until she disappeared from his sights when he finally reacted to what had just happened. He looked down at the pregnancy test at his feet and picked it up into his trembling hands, holding it in his fingers. He felt the anger and terror build up inside of him and he tried to rip the box apart, his breathing heavy and labored as he screamed at it, "**I'm an idiot!**" He finally gave up on trying to rip the cardboard box and threw it into the stream. He watched as a flock of birds broke apart in alarm as it crashed in the water beside them.

Ezra collapsed onto the bench on the bridge and put it face into his hands, feeling like he was about to break. He felt like a failure for making her react like that. He rubbed his eyes when the tears forming there began to form. Everything in him told him to go after her, take her into his arms, and apologize, but he knew that his headstrong girlfriend never let him do that when she was in such an emotional state. She wanted to be alone, so he would give her space until she didn't want space anymore. He would be there waiting there for her.

He was also waiting on the girl who she used to be, the independent and intriguing young woman he had met all those days ago in _Snookers. _

_**Waitin' on a woman.**_

* * *

**I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. It was pretty tough for me to write, just as I had expected and that is one of the excuses that I am going to use to why it took me so long to update. It was way overdue and I hope the length (well over 7,000 words) and the time I put into it was worth waiting for and worth reading. If I accomplished that, I am extremely grateful.**

**The poem that I wrote "Thin Skin and Barely Bone" will be coming into play rather soon. Probably around the same time when Ezra finds out the truth about Aria's eating disorder. As said before, I have never experienced an eating disorder myself so I am really challenging myself by writing this story. I want to make it as accurate as possible! (That includes the time sequence and I'd like to thank Katie for giving me the info on what happens after the first month. Greatly appreciate it!)**

**Thank you for all the reviews and feedback. Please continue to support this story and review. All of it is taken into consideration and professionally. Thank you again!**

**And my Twitter friends who I give links to: please leave a review as well. I love the tweets, but they disappear and I love having all of the feedback in one place, so please leave a review in addition to your tweets. I appreciate it. **

**See you soon!**


	4. The Screaming Unheard in a Crowded Room

**Thin Skin and Barely Bone: Chapter 4**

**The Screaming Unheard in a Crowded Room**

* * *

_Beauty of whatever kind invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears._

_ ~Edgar Allen Poe _

* * *

_**July 28**__**th**__**, 2011**_

Dark midnight encased the bedroom with a fully mooned glove crawling in fragments on the soft creamy white carpet where three teenage girls lied, their soft snores echoing in the back of their throat. Or at least, that was the case for two of the girls. The third was doing her best to fall back onto, or _trying to find, _a path into the woods of slumber, but she couldn't seem to find it. She tossed and turned, attempting to readjust her position underneath her Hollis Snuggie, thinking that was the reason. The realm of her reality was that an ache in her ribcage that stretched tightly against the surface of the protection of her clammy skin refused to go away, an ache that had set in ten days before, following the repercussions of her charging away from the bridge, away from the one and only person who was her safe place to land, her best friend, her lover, _**her boyfriend**_.

The ache twitched uncomfortably in Aria's torso like an injured baby bird; a reminder of the possible end of communications with one of the most important people in her life. Tears pricked at the corners of her sunken almond gray eyes as she brought her knees to her chest, clutching them there as if she were a child scared of a storm. And in some ways, just like the lyrics of her ringtone, it was a storm. The storm that was raging in her mind through the seed that had been planted two summers before. _Her own personal storm. _

Since leaving Ezra on the bridge, Aria was determined to lose whatever weight had Ezra thinking that she was pregnant with his baby. She began running for miles at a time until she coughed blood by the time she was done. She went to the gym in New Hope to avoid questions from friends, classmates, and the rest of the judgmental town. She did sit-ups, push-ups, lunges, and other core exercises for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, her pants of pain from the burning sensation in the pit of her stomach being drowned by heavy metal music. One face lied in her mind when she would work out so much that she would end up throwing up blood: _Ezra. _Even after what had gone down prior to her new obsession with exercise, he was the one who get her block out the pain.

She never thought that things could ever be this bad. She never thought that things would fall apart like this. She never thought that she would lose control like she did; she thought after a few times she could stop and now she was addicted to the temporarily feeling of being comfortable with her own body. She never thought that she would be thinking about the possibility of her and Ezra being over for good. They argued a lot, but made up almost immediately. They couldn't bear to be away from one another. They couldn't stay away no matter how hard they tried, no matter how dangerous it was, they _**always**_ made their way back to each other_. _He always came back for her. It'd been ten days. He wasn't on her doorstep with a bouquet of her favorite flowers, asking for her forgiveness after thinking that she was pregnant. Her phone hadn't seen his contact in over a week. He was either done with her or waiting for her to come to him. He had vanished from her life again.

_**This was the nightmare that she couldn't wake up from. **_

Aria missed Ezra more than a kid missed Mickey Mouse at Disneyworld. She missed his sparkling blue eyes that smoldered affection and friendlessness in the depths of the indigo lava. She missed his not so funny jokes that she laughed at just to make him feel good about himself. She missed the wisps of his dark chestnut brown hair falling over the pattern of the skin on his forehead. She missed the laugh that rung in her ears as they were curled up together on the bed, _on their sacred ground_, when they were asleep. She missed his sweet yet empowering kisses that made her feel complete, whole, and like nothing could ever go wrong. She missed the touch of electricity that he never failed to bring to the surface of her skin. She missed the way he rocked her at night, his lips on her neck and his hands roaming the body that she hated, the body that _**he **_hated.

She didn't want to think about the possibility that they may be over because when she did, she couldn't even begin to describe the pain that set in the pit of her stomach. Like an iron as simmering as fire searing the walls of her throat and a hoard of soccer players with freshly sharpened cleats piercing the fragile surface that was her heart. The idea of saying goodbye to the only thing that was stable in her life made her feel like she was losing part of herself, her better half, _the only one for her. _She had no interest in any of the boys who went to her school; she had tried that. She had tried to date someone her own age and she realized that Ezra couldn't be replaced. He was the one who made her feel like she was floating even with the dreading sense of gravity pulling her down. He had her heart in his hands for the rest of forever. And although that was very Bella Swan of her to wallow in the sorrow of the potential reality of them being over, she couldn't deny that if their relationship was now nothing but ashes. She would fall apart even more than she already had.

With Ezra, Aria could do anything she set her mind to. She could do everything and anything as long as he was beside her, holding her hand and coaxing her through it. Without him was like a living hell. She still remembered the pain of him leaving all those days ago in March after the first time they had made love to each other. The desperation, the anguish, _the goodbye_ had shaken her to her core. She was without him for a week and all of those seven days, she didn't know who she was or what she was doing. She was lost without him in her life.

Giving up on the idea of sleep, Aria pushed herself up into a sitting position. She rubbed her eyes with one of her bony fingers, her shadow in the fragment of the moonlight on the carpet hardly as wide as a broomstick. She paid no attention to it. Hanna and Spencer were sleeping around her on the floor of the youngest Hastings' bedroom, empty cups of coffee, bags of popcorn, and rag magazines. It was one of the first times all summer where they spent some time together. The last time had been at Spencer's Fourth of July party three weeks before and for the friends that had been united against the powers of Mona and the seemingly never-ending searching for the murderer of the fifth member of their group, it had been far too long.

Hanna was busy with a summer internship at a fashion boutique, expanding her knowledge of the English language and cooking classes with Caleb while Spencer was taking classes at Hollis and spending time with Toby. Then of course Emily was in Haiti, building houses for orphans. She had left in order to escape the horde of reporters that would camp in her front lawn to get statements about her dead girlfriend, Maya St. Germaine. They talked to her once in a while when she finally found a way to get a phone connection down there in the ruins of the poor villages.

With her fight with Ezra, the remaining three in Rosewood decided to have a sleepover just like old times. They watched _The Notebook_ and cried together in a linked chained of wet eyes and entwined arms, exchanged current gossip like the latest boob job of Prudence Finn, and then retired early to bed. And by early, that meant eleven o' clock because the tall brunette and witty blonde had to get up by seven the following morning while Aria didn't have any plans and would probably spend the day pacing down Ezra's block, deciding whether or not to make up with him.

She wiped her nose with her t-shirt sleeve as she glared at one of the covers of the magazines. There it was; a picture of a woman with a flawless body, no shame in her features. _How did she get to be so comfortable with her body? _Aria thought as she started at the cover, her hazel eyes burning a forest fire of vengeance. She took it into her hands and after enough raindrops had made their way down her cheeks, she threw it, watching it crashed against the wall. She waited her friends to wake up in surprise, but they stayed asleep, curled up in their blankets, perfectly at ease as she sat there in a puddle of self-pity, loathing, and anguish, with her arms wrapped around her body, trying to stop it from its shivering. It was mid-summer, but she felt as cold as though her heart was made of ice; strong enough to get through the day, but fragile enough to be broken. Her blood ran in a sluggish race as it went through the streams that was sent from the organ that brat like a drum.

She hated the magazine.

She hated the woman.

_**She hated herself**_.

Without even thinking twice about it, Aria pushed herself to her feet and made her way out of the bedroom, her feet almost silent on the carpet as she opened and closed the door behind her. Her shadow followed her as she went into the hallway bathroom, closing and locking the door. She headed straight to the toilet without looking at the reflecting that would trigger the emotions even more. She knew what was there waiting for her to despise and spit at. The slab of glass that sat there would only show what reminded her of why she was doing this.

She flipped the seat up and tied her hair back in a ponytail. This was becoming almost a religion to her; as often as she did it, it was now a practice as she kneeled down and grouped two fingers together and as tears dripped down her cheeks, her eyes squeezed shut, she shoved them into the walls of her throat. She jammed them as far as they would go against her uvula as nose curdling bile from her digested meal of half a turkey burger, popcorn, and coffee began its journey up into her mouth. She tasted everything; everything including the sense of her own despair.

Aria gagged in pain as her rib cage pressed against her torso, the weak bones that were barely there pressing against the thin layer of skin that lied above it. She clutched her stomach with her free and clean hand as the first contents made their way out of her mouth, spilling into the white basin in front of her. She coughed again, allowing her fingers to jam tightly against the walls of her throat once more. The contents of her stomach just kept coming up and coming up. She was kept shoving her fingers farther and farther into the back of her throat, tensing her skinny shoulders in concentration as she braced herself for another round of vomit. It burnt, it hurt, but at that very moment, she felt more confident in herself than she had in over a month. It was temporary and short-lived, but she cherished it as she bent her head over the toilet, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

It poured around her fingers in a mix of phlegm and digested food, the bile burning the inside of her cheeks as the liquid dripped into the toilet, rolling down her chin in a river. A few minutes went by as she continued the cycle again and again. She kept going until she felt disoriented, tired, and yet still unfulfilled. She didn't feel like it was enough; she didn't feel like _**anything **_she did was enough. She could literally feel the fat on her body laughing at her from its place on her thighs, stomach, face, hips. Her heart pounded to regain composure from its high speed race as she collapsed against the bathtub, the tears watering her cheeks as if they were a ditch after a rainfall, overflowing and spilling over the edges.

Aria sat there against the tub, her head resting on her knees that were tightly pulled up to her chest. The feeling of self-contentment from just five minutes before had melted away like dew in a stretch of moorland after the morning blew away in the breeze of the twenty-four hour day. She was broken. There was no other word to describe her. She was like glass of a broken window, her feelings scattered in shards around her. She wasn't the girl she used to be. She was molded into a person who she never wanted to be. She didn't _ask _to feel like this. She didn't _**want**_ to feel like this. She loathed it. She loathed what she turned into. She loathed who she was. She couldn't think of one thing she didn't hate about herself. The girl who was raised to be independent and be herself had turned into someone who was shaped by the monster –A. She didn't know what she had done to deserve this pain, this hatred, this _**terror**_. She couldn't stop this even if she wanted to. She couldn't stop until she was perfect, even if ending up wrecking her reputation, relationships, and her connection to the outside world. She wanted to feel confident and fearless again without the disgust that she felt in the pit of her abdomen, but that wouldn't happen until she was content with whom she saw in the mirror.

_The scary thing was that that she didn't believe that she had enough will power to stop. _

_**Maybe a midnight run would help subside the triggering feelings that were lingering in the cool ocean of her veins….**_

The seventeen year old quickly flipped down the toilet seat, flushed it, and, without looking in the mirror, washed her hands free of the bile. She dabbed her face with the towel before leaving the bathroom in a rush. Aria made her way down the stairs, her blood being pumped throughout her body way too quickly. She was emotionally exhausted but she didn't pause as she slipped on her socks and sneakers, tying the laces quickly as she charged out of the Hastings' home, closing the door almost silently behind her. She flipped out her phone and furiously texted both of the girls, telling them that she took off early because Ezra needed her. There would be questions later, but she would be able to handle them the following day.

She thought about the lie as she turned her phone off and put it away in the pocket of her pockets and began to slowly jog down the street, the warm early morning summer air encasing her in an embrace as if it was giving her a hug. His apartment was five miles away from her moving place on the moonlit sidewalk in downtown Rosewood. Would he be awake? It was almost one o' clock and he could be asleep at peace without her nuisance lying beside him, taking up the majority of it after eating all of the food in his apartment. If she just showed up in the middle of the night, he would be like a grumpy old man the next day. He was hard enough to wake up.

Then again he was a night owl. He was probably still awake, typing a poem about his crazy bitch of a girlfriend and how happy he was without her. Or maybe he was waiting for her to come to him, standing on the balcony and humming their love song to himself, his arms yearning for her return. His dark blue eyes smoldering an overwhelming sense of an indigo ocean, drowning in the moonlight that was falling upon him on his balcony as he leaned against the raining while murmuring the lyrics to "Happiness"; the song they had bonded over all those days ago on September 1st. He was _**waiting **_for her.

_Ha__ppiness is just outside my window_

_Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour?_

_Or is happiness a little more like _

_Knocking on your door and you just let it in._

That thought was enough. Aria was going to go and makeup with him. She missed him. She needed him. She _**wanted **_him back in her life again and she was going to be the one to fix things before things got even worse. Her short legs increased their speed and power as she sprinted down the moonlit sidewalk, the cool of the night washing over her. Her heart struggled to keep up with the pace of her legs that carried her farther and farther up the street. Her breath chilled the warm air around her. She fought to remain focused as her feet tapped and rubbed against the pavement of the sidewalk. She didn't thinking about anything but Ezra. He kept her heart beating, even when he pissed her off, made her cry, and even miserable sometimes. But he made her feel _**cheerful**_. He made her feel the urgency to _**stay**_ _**alive. **_He made her feel like before he was in her life, she was empty, but now she was _**whole. **_

_**Without Ezra Fitz, she wasn't Aria Montgomery. **_

* * *

The sense of tranquility washed over the one-room apartment on the third floor, second from the staircase. There was hardly any light remaining besides the hanging lamp in the kitchen, its scarlet glow against the surface of the wall and the illuminating laptop screen on a desk just a few feet away. The young man in front of it sat with the back of his hands supporting his head as he scrolled through pages on the internet. His blue eyes were narrowed as if they were a sliver of the full moon outside his window. His curly dark brown curls tumbled over his forehead and he blinked consistently to stay awake. A half-empty bottle of scotch sat not so far away from his place in the cushioned rolling chair.

It was late. Almost one o' clock on that Thursday morning, but Ezra wasn't even close to going to bed yet. He'd been on the internet for hours, trying to narrow things down about Aria's erratic behavior that she was lying to him about. If she wasn't pregnant, what else would be bothering her so much? Why she unhappy being with him? He knew that sometimes he expected too much of her, that she deserved more than what he could give her, but if she felt like it was too overwhelming to be in this relationship, she was the type of person who tell him what was going. Or…she used to be. Now he had no idea who the seventeen year old was. And the feeling of knowing that he had lost the girl he'd fallen in love with scared him. It _**terrified **_him.

He hadn't seen her in well over a week. He was doing his best to give her space, but that was hard, knowing that something was going on in her life that she didn't trust him enough to tell him what was going on with her. Ezra thought that everything that they'd been through in the almost eleven months of them being together that she would feel like she go to him about anything. She didn't have to be embarrassed about anything when it came to telling him things that were bothering. Well, if she wasn't going to give him the answers he wanted, he would go looking for them himself. And although he was scared of what he may find in the depths of the world wide web, he knew that another day without knowing was like telling Aria that he didn't care enough to know.

He was head over heels for the girl, but there had been occasions in the past where she had blown something he said or did _way _out of proportion, even if it was the littlest thing. Sometimes she made him so frustrated and upset because of how overdramatic she could be about certain things. She would twist his words into something that was so far from what he meant, he didn't even know what to think. Aria made him irritated, clueless, and pissed off. Every time they got into an argument over anything at all, the seventeen year old did the teenager thing and charge out of the apartment and would not return for days at a time. She knew that he would never be genuinely angry with her, but when those disagreements got heated, they both said things that they didn't mean. She was the one of the most confusing women he'd ever meant. Sometimes he'd think that he had her all figured out and then the next minute, he was just as confused as before.

At the end of the day, though, even after all the times she got on his last nerve and made him want to rip all of the curly dark brown hair from his head, he would never regret anything about their relationship. Once she was in his arms with her head on his chest, her breathing matching the musical rhythm of his, he didn't know anything, but being with her. He was in love with the woman who he fallen for in the most unsuspecting place. Something that had started so innocent had evolved into something both beautiful and dangerous. He couldn't imagine his life without her in it. He was fixated on someone who should have never been his. No matter what they went through, no matter what the argument that they got into, no matter how many times she walked out the door and slammed it behind her, they would always find their ways back to one another. They were just two crazy kids who realized early on that it wouldn't be easy, but that it was worth the fight. That _**they **_were worth the fight.

So, there the twenty-four year old sat, his earphones fixed in placed in his ears. He refused to listen to "Happiness" when he and Aria were fighting, especially after the one they'd had ten days before. It reminded him too much of her and he would end up drinking an entire bottle of scotch, even though he regretted it the next day because of the nasty hangover and the fuzzy five o' clock shadow that graced his face. So, he listened to other things, such as Ed Sheeran, Matt Nathanson, and Ron Pope. However, tonight one song had been on repeat: "New York" by Snow Patrol. The lyrics were about a separated couple who had the odds against them, but still had the hope that the one day they could be together again. The theme was home and the hope that one's true love will return to them again.

_**If you were here beside me instead of in New York  
If the curve of you was curved on me  
I'd tell you that I loved you before I ever knew you  
'Cause I loved the simple thought of you**_

Ezra drew in a sharp intake of breath as the lyrics began again and he resumed his typing on the laptop keyboard, the smooth tabs of his fingers hesitating before they began drumming against the letters. He had searched for any possible thing that he could think of. From pre-menstrual cramps to hiding an affair to the symptoms of personality disorders, he had found nothing that fit what he was looking for. He was losing the stamina to stay away as his eyes began to droop and wander to other places on the desk. His eyes fell upon a brown leathered notebook on top of all of his takeout menus. Aria often left some of her journals there at the apartment. She trusted him enough not to go through them. At that moment, though, he knew that he needed to figure what was going on with her before it drove him off the deep end.

He hesitantly reached over and picked it up into shaking hands, suddenly breaking out into a sweat. For obvious reasons, he was reluctant to do this; after all, Aria trusted him more than anyone else in the world and this was violating her privacy. If she were to ever find out, she would never forgive him. However, if she was hurting and if in those creamy white pages lied the answers he was looking for, he would take the risk of Aria possibly never trusting him again. He was sure that what he was doing was the right thing for her in the long run and if she got mad, she would get over it.

Ezra flipped through it, skimming some of his writing. Some of her writing was about him and he couldn't help but blush when he got to the entry on March 12th, the anniversary of their first time:

_March 12__th__, 2011. 11;36 PM. _

_Dear Journal,_

_It's late. It's dark outside and I can hear the raindrops fall onto the pavement out on the balcony. _

_I'm lying awake tonight next to Ezra. He lost his job at Hollis and he's leaving again. I blame myself. If he hadn't met me, he would still be at Rosewood High and I would just be his student, instead of the girl who keeps screwing everything up for him. I'm not regretting walking into that pub, though. No matter how hard it gets, I will never be unhappy about how things have turned out for us. He is the one for me. There's no going back and I wish for nothing more than to just be with him. It's crazy on how he makes me feel. I fall in love with him more and more every time I look at him. _

_We finally made love to one another earlier tonight. We waited six months, eleven days, six hours, and twenty-two minutes. It was something worth waiting for and I will never look back and regret giving my virginity to this beautiful man who is lying beside me right now. He didn't do anything wrong or anything to hurt me. There was not one bad moment. Now we're just tangled in skin and in his favorite blanket. There is literally nothing more perfect than right now. I don't want him to leave in two days, but I know he'll be back for me. He can't live without me just like how I can't live without him._

After taking the major boost to ego of his pleasure-giving ability, he flipped to a more current entry. There weren't any in this journal from the past month or so besides one as recent as July 12th. It immediately caught his attention. Instead of the usual black ink that she used to write her entries with, she used red to write down the poem. This chilled him to the core; this was worse than he thought. It was no comparison to the words that lied on the page. What he read in the next moment made him feel like everything he had known disappeared into the early morning sky where the large full moon hung closely with the stars as if they were sharing secrets. The clock gradually turned from twelve fifty-nine to one on the dot. Time was frozen, though. He couldn't feel anything. He was numb as if he had frostbite, all of his limbs turning blue:

_July 12ths, 2012 _

_Thin Skin and Barely Bone_

_The scale keeps topping_

_My heart is breaking_

_The mirror reflects my shame_

_This is my own personal game_

_It's been weeks since I last ate_

_I cannot let myself gain weight_

_My image has to be perfect_

_Even if I end up being wrecked_

_The scale mocks me_

_It tells me who to be_

_It has its own voice_

_And it's not like I have a choice_

_Show me how to be pretty_

_Though I'm not sure I'm ready_

_Because this is how I'm shown_

_Thin skin and barely bone_

Ezra didn't even realize that he was shaking uncontrollably, his fingers trembling against the leaf of paper that held the words there. Tears pricked his eyes as he read the words over and over again, choked sobs rolling through a catch in his chest and throat. He finally closed the journal and carefully put it back in place before sitting in his chair and just crying into the palms of his hands. It all made since now; the snappy behavior, the dramatic weight loss, the throwing up in the middle of the night. He didn't know how he hadn't seen this before. He'd failed to protect her. He'd failed to make her feel beautiful. He'd failed to notice the signs before now.

_**He'd failed her. **_

Quickly, he snapped up and through the stinging of the tears in the indigo depths of his cobalt blue eyes, he typed in the three words that he never would have thought in a million years that he would be searching for: _eating disorder symptoms_**. **He let out a whimper as he clicked on one of the first came up in the Google results: _National Institute of Mental Health. _

He cringed at the words, but stayed on the page, knowing that if he could figure out what was going on with her, he would be able to help her in any way that he could. If he was scared, he couldn't even begin to imagine what his girlfriend was going through or how she was feeling every morning she woke up and looked in the mirror. He forced himself to read through the rain in the dark smoldering orbs as he began to read what he needed to know, a knot forming in his stomach:

_An eating disorder is an illness that causes serious disturbances to your everyday diet, such as eating __**extremely small amounts of food**__ or severely overeating. A person with an eating disorder may have started out just eating smaller or larger amounts of food, but at some point,__** the urge to eat less or more spiraled out of control**__. Severe __**distress or concern**__ about body__** weight or shape**__ may also characterize an eating disorder._

_Symptoms of anorexia nervosa that may develop over time: thinning of bones, __**brittle hair**__ and nails, muscle wasting and __**weakness**__, drop in thermal temperature._

_Usually, bulimic behavior is done __**secretly**__ because it is often accompanied by __**feelings**__ of __**disgust**__ or __**shame**__. The binge-eating and purging cycle happens anywhere from __**several times a week to many times a day.**_

Not able to read anymore words on that page, Ezra exited from the page, shutdown the computer, pushed himself up to his feet and walked out onto the outside balcony, his hands at the back of his head. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life. He glanced up at the sky and somehow, someway, he felt an overwhelming sense of peace wash over him as he stood there, as if Aria was staring up at it, too. He wanted to talk to her. He _**needed **_to talk to her _**right then. **_He needed her in his arms where he could help her in any way that he could. He needed to be able to make her feel beautiful. He didn't want her to feel like she lose the nonextistent fat on her body. For the first time he murmured the words out loud:

"_Aria has an eating disorder."_

Out of nowhere, Ezra sees a glimpse of a shadow passing in the moonlight below the balcony. The shadow was small-framed and fast moving, as if the person was on a run early that morning. The movement slowed as they drew closer, but the twenty-four year old already knew who it. His gaze locked with the sunken almond gray eyes that were twinkling up at him, almost beige in the moonlight. Even after all he had just read and all he was feeling, no one would be able to deny the feeling that he felt in the chambers of his heart was love and affection for the breathless tiny girl ten feet below.

Since the front desk was closed downstairs, barring Aria from entrance into the building, he went down the three levels of the fire escape outside his apartment to get to her. The journey was easy since he worked out every morning. He dropped down the last part of the level, somewhat chilled as he brushed off his hands and made his way to Aria, stepping into an atmosphere that he had never wanted to be in. His smile on his face didn't falter, but his heartbeat quickened and sunk in a deep abyss of terror as he took in Aria's shape, stopping a few feet in front of her.

_**Come on, come out, come here, come here  
Come on, come out, come here, come here  
Come on, come out, come here, come here  
Come on, come out, come here, come here**_

Her cheeks were sunken in against her jaw; it had only been ten days but it already looks like she was at least fifteen pounds lighter than they had been before. All of the color from her face was drained, leaving behind almost an albino white in place of the blush that he was so in love with. The lining of the tension was stretching tightly against the skin of her jaw. Her hair had lost a lot of its dark auburn color from its dark blown brunette locks, falling limply against her shoulder; it looked very dry. His eyes travelled to her nightshirt where her collarbones stuck out as if there was no skin and she was just a skeleton. Further down her torso, her stomach was abnormally flat against her jutting ribs that seemed to stretch through her skin, clinging to the fabric of the shirt, threatening to burst through.

His gaze relocked with hers and he took a few steps closer. He was cautious. He didn't want to spook her. However, he couldn't help but get extremely close her, where they were exchanging breath. He looked down at her with a wide grin and murmured, hesitantly reaching his hand up to her face, where she pressed it with one of her own bony hands, resting it against her fragile cheekbones, "Welcome home, Aria." His voice broke and he could stand it any longer. He needed to hug her.

_**The lone neon nights and the ache of the ocean  
And the fire that was starting to spark  
I miss it all, from the love to the lightning  
And the lack of it snaps me in two**_

Aria beat him to it. Before he could even think about moving, her arms were around her neck, pressing her to him. He could feel her ribs pressing against his abdomen and he did his best to ignore it for the moment. He buried his face into the crevice of her neck, giving it sweet kisses and murmuring comforting words into her skin. He could hear her crying softly; whether it was out of sadness or joy to being back with him where she belonged, he did not know, but soon she was able to respond to his words, her voice soft and breathless, "I'm glad to be home." When he began to loosen his grip on her, she only clutched tighter to him, whimpering, "Don't let me go, Ezra. Please never let me go. Never leave me again." She swallowed hard and Ezra only pressed her closer, if that was even possible, "_Please, Ezra. I can't take it. I'm not strong enough."_

"_You __**are **__strong enough," _He whispered back, his words breaking as they fell from his trembling lips. He had never known that he had caused her so much pain for leaving her behind in Rosewood after he lost his job. He blamed himself. He blamed himself for everything that she was now going through because _**he**_ was her trigger, "_I am never leaving again. I am at your side for the rest of forever, Aria. Through every storm, every trial, every tangle that we get ourselves into," _A single tear fell from his eyes as he pressed a kiss into her hair, "_you are where I need to be. __**I'm here and I'm yours**_."

_**Just give me a sign, there's an end and not beginning  
To the quiet chaos driving me mad  
The lone neon nights and the walls of the ocean  
And the fire that is starting to go out **_

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the poem that this entire storyline is base off of. The hardest part for me to write was probably either when Aria was throwing up or when Ezra finally found out the truth about what is going on. It made me tear up a bit. Capturing those emotions was like they were my own and it's hard to get in the mindset. But it's worth it. **_**Very, very **_**worth it. This is a great story and I am enjoying writing it a little bit too much. **

**I apologize for Aria's Bella Swan moment at the beginning of the chapter. I just felt like it was needed and I am a very cheesy romantic who loves the taste of drama. Oh yes, the days of Romance to Last a Lifetime are far behind me!**

**As said many times before, I have never experienced an eating disorder myself so if I need to make any improvements or if any of you have suggestions to make the story truer to what it's like having one, please get a hold of me on Twitter, Tumblr, or here on the site.**

**Thank you so much for the reviews! I think I got 30-32 on chapter 3 and 74 reviews all in all. And then all the support on twitter is overwhelming. All of you are amazing and I appreciate the time taken to give me the feedback. Please continue to review and let me know on y'all like the story! ****All constructive criticism is taken into consideration and professionally. Can we get to 100 reviews by the next update? Please? Thanks again for the support!**

**And my Twitter friends who I give links to: please leave a review as well. I love the tweets, but they disappear and I love having all of the feedback in one place, so please leave a review in addition to your tweets. I appreciate it.**

**See you soon!**


	5. Neverending Reeling with the New Known

**Thin Skin and Barely Bone: Chapter 5**

**Neverending Reeling with the New Known**

* * *

_Every_ _heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet._

_~Plato_

* * *

_**August 4th, 2011**_

After keeping their love secret for over six months, any show of public affection still came very strange for Ezra and Aria. They were not used to holding hands, hugging, or kissing at any time when they were in Rosewood. It was unexplored and somewhat dangerous territory for the couple. It was like they were diving headfirst to the opening of a large volcano and into awaiting lava, burning and boiling their skin as they fought to stay afloat. Going in the public eye of the small Pennsylvanian town was equal to the danger of teasing a hungry lion with a zebra. Eventually the lion is going to charge after the zebra and it won't be able to get away fast enough.

Even though, they hadn't been approached _much_ since their reveal at the masquerade ball in March, the two still heard the rumors that were going around about them from Aria's friends, brother, and mother; much of the town believed that Ezra should have been arrested and thrown into jail or the even worse rumor that Aria was pregnant with his child. They had known that it would be rocky after they went public in the eyes of Aria's classmates and Ezra's former colleagues, but they hadn't expected this kind of indirect cruelty that spun around their heads like a pair of annoying flies.

The most important thing to Aria was that she had Ezra back and their argument from mid-July was put behind them. They were in a state of happy bliss for the first time since June and were inseparable once more. Where the seventeen year old went, her boyfriend was not far behind and vice versa. When they weren't feeling adventurous, they would cuddle in the apartment and play board games, such as Yahtzee and Scrabble. They went to the park and had picnics on a blanket. They went to pool parties at Spencer's and went night swimming when no one was around, sometimes even sneaking over all the way from the apartment; it often led to skinny dipping and the doing of _**certain activities **_underneath the water…

That August day, seven days after their reunion, Aria had begged her boyfriend to take her to Rosewood Plaza, the local mall, to pick out some new clothes and since the man could not say no to her, he obliged with no complaint. It was a good day in the eyes of the adolescent girl. She hadn't made herself thrown up in that amount of time for two reasons: 1) Ezra knew that she was getting up during the early hours of the morning and 2) because she finally felt like she was gaining a controlled hold on this eating disorder. Maybe she didn't need to throw up anymore.

However, even if she hadn't vomited in the past seventy-two hours, she could still not look into a mirror without the urge to. Sometimes, in the apartment's bathroom, she felt herself reaching for the toothbrush on top of the cupboard before she could even think about what she was doing. Despite the fact that she had way more self-control, the young woman ate very little and when she did, it was a salad or sunflower seeds. Her body size continued to shrink, thus the need for smaller clothes. All of her shirts were baggy on her small frame and her skinny jeans no longer had the skinny quality to them. She was thrilled at the fact that she'd moved down a size or two, but still did not feel like it was enough. She felt like _**nothing **_she did was enough to make her feel beautiful again. Not the running, not the lack of eating, not the vomiting, _**nothing at all. **_

She had to wonder if Ezra had figured it out since they'd reconciled. When he thought she wasn't paying attention, she caught him staring at her with a glimmer of worry and guilt in those cobalt depths. He was nervous around her, always making comments about how beautiful she was and would watch her like a hawk when she ate something. He was much more protective and tense around her than before their argument and it brought her to question if he had found that poem that she had left written from the first few days of the eating disorder in the leather-bound journal in his apartment. She always shoved this thought from her mind immediately, knowing that he would never do anything like that. He respected her privacy and would _**never **_invade it.

One milestone with the two of them during that week, those precious seven days, was when Aria went to Ella's for a mother-daughter brunch, Ezra tagged along as a third-while in order to bond with his probable future mother-in-law. After all, their friendship had always been stronger than the one that he'd had with Byron, even before the truth about the older professor's daughter's relationship came out because of the barriers that both Ezra and Aria had put up to keep in the dark and the nervousness that the twenty-four year old man instinctively felt with his girlfriend's father—especially since the first time the two crossed paths, Byron threatened him, thinking that the young teacher who was already petrified of meeting him during parent-teacher conference in October was making moves on his wife. The accusations were false of course, but it made Ezra even more scared of telling him one day of what he was _really _studying with his daughter.

Besides, Ella was much more open minded than her ex-husband. She still didn't completely condone the relationship between her former colleague and her seventeen year old, but at least she tried to accept the circumstances as they were and extended an open invitation to the young man. Aria knew very that it meant everything to Ezra to get acceptance from her parents and she knew that even if it took years for them to come around, they would in their own time. And this summer together helped Byron and Ella see the couple together in a new light.

It also gave the two a chance to do things that they hadn't been able to do before, such as seeing a drive in movie and going out to dinner in Rosewood instead of Philly, Scranton, or New Hope. They were Even with all of the cold stares and glances they would draw, they knew that their first summer together was very much worth drawing all of the unnecessary attention.

_**Spending their first summer together was one full of memories that they would always remember.**_

Rosewood Plaza was crowded as usual, even though the weather outside was beautiful. The parking lot was filled with cars and Ezra had to park at the end of it to find an empty spot. His hand clutched Aria's on the holder of the gear shift that sat as a barrier between them and he glanced over at his girlfriend with a frown on his pursed lips, his eyebrows coming together in a sense of frustration. He was pouting and Aria couldn't help but smile. He was adorable when his bottom lip scarcely went over his top one, "Out of all the things we could have done today, you chose to spend the morning shopping. And I actually agreed!" He shook his head as he rubbed his eyes in fake exhaustion, "What do I get out of this entire ordeal?"

"Would you like to know now or later?" She asked him, running her hand over his as if to comfort him. He hated shopping as much as she hated going to baseball games with him. He always complained about prices being too high and about how he would rather watch grass die.

He shrugged apathetically, "Well, now so then I have an idea of what I have to look forward to."

His girlfriend's grin widened seductively as she reached over and rubbed his thigh, causing his eyes to suddenly shoot open and his shoulders to tighten underneath the fabric of his plain white t-shirt, a moan escaping the entrance of his mouth. Aria undid her seatbelt and climbed over onto his lap, her legs rubbing against his as she pressed herself against him, her back against the steering wheel. His eyes were wide and filled with surprise, looking up at her as she loomed over him, her hazel gaze filled with a mysterious glimmer. She leaned forward and whispered heavily in his ear, her hands finding the hem of his shirt, "_Well, I __**was **__thinking about making a special trip down to Victoria's Secret just for you. My lingerie is sure getting raggedy…"_

Ezra swallowed hard, sweat beginning to form at the crease of his forehead. He nodded nervously in agreement, a smile falling upon his formerly pouting lips, "I-I ag-ree." He fought to stutter out a proper sentence with the English that he had paid so much money for when he was in college, trying to complete all his credits for the English Literature major, but with his girlfriend so close to him, he had a hard time remembering anything other than the fact that he was about to get hot and heavy with her in the front seat of his car, "Why have lingerie when we already have right now?" He took a trembling finger and used it to slide down the strap of her spaghetti strap down her shoulder, his breath becoming heavier in the sense of sexual desire.

She giggled, her cheeks turning a very hot pink, murmuring, her breathing light and mellow with the coating of seduction evident between her next words, "Then let's take advantage of it, _**Mr. Fitz.**_" Knowing that would turn him into a hot mess of a puddle, she didn't give him a chance to moan. She pressed her lips to his and they began to move together in a familiar pattern of passion and lust, his tongue slipping past her teeth in a fight for dominance against hers. She clung to him, her fingers entwined in the course of his dark brown hair.

It wasn't long before his shirt was over his head and in the backseat. Aria had forgotten how nice it was to seduce her boyfriend. It wasn't hard since he was a twenty-four old man who hadn't had the most activity going on between the sheets of his bed when he was in high school or in college; which was hard for her to believe since he was such a beautiful and strong man. The way he took her into his arms and pressed her so close to him made her think that he was the most experienced at this kind of thing. He didn't hurt her and he gave her control when she wanted it. She wouldn't want to be making love to a man any other way.

Suddenly, the seat was going down in a gradual recline and Aria broke away in alarm as she was soon lying on top of him. Ezra raised his eyebrows innocently as his hand came up from the seat controls, a mischievous smirk coming across his face, "I thought we could at least be more comfortable." His mouth again swooped up against hers, his fingers tugging at the hem of her shirt as he was finally to tug it over her head and threw it behind him, his smile spreading as he began kissing her once more, his hands moving all over her body, his tongue running over the top of her teeth. She straddled his hips and he continued to groan in obvious pleasure. He moved his lips to her neck and down to the exposed skin along her collarbone. She arched her neck back to give him easier access and she couldn't help but grin widely in a sense of joy that she hadn't felt in nearly two months.

The scene would have been happier if Aria hadn't opened her eyes for a slight moment and looked into her reflection in the back windshield. That was when her blood ran cold, totally ignoring the aggressive kissing of Ezra's on her skin where future hickies would rise against the soft complexion. There she was, an obese girl crushing the man she loved as she tried to arouse him. She looked like Viola from _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory _after she turned into the blueberry or a big and fat freak after a trip to Old Country Buffet. She was surprised that Ezra was still breathing underneath all of her weight.

All of her happiness from just a minute before disappeared, bringing her back to the unfortunate reality that sat in the crevice of her heart. She was stupid to think she'd ever be able to be happy when she hated herself more than even –A could. She didn't feel like she had the right to be happy when she made everyone else so miserable with the way she paraded around like a wild buffalo in a stampede. She didn't deserve Ezra, who practically radiated perfection as if it were an angelic glow around his head. She didn't deserve her three best friends who were all more beautiful than her. She didn't deserve her loving family who kept on feeding her lies just to make her feel better about herself.

Her currently emotions reminded her of a book that Ezra had bought her for their six month anniversary, _The Perks of Being a Wallflower. _The 1999 published novel by Stephan Chbosky was about a young man who was in his first year of high school and was writing to an unnamed friend that he was dealing with a lot that came with being a teenager in the last public school years of his education, including a past that no one understood and one that he could barely remember. His adventures began when he met upperclassmen and step-siblings, Sam and Patrick. The two older teenagers expose Charlie to a lot of things that he had never expected he'd experience. The young man soon began to develop feelings for Sam, but unfortunately, she was dating a guy who treated her like crap. Charlie, troubled, went to his trusted teacher and friend, Bill Anderson, and asked why people choose the wrong people to date. The wise teacher responded simply, "_**We accept the love we think we deserve.**__"_

In her case, Aria felt like she was accepting the love that she _**didn't **_deserve. She deserved anything worse than what she was receiving.

Ezra must have sensed something was wrong as she pulled away from his sweet and loving kisses. He peered up at her, the lust in his eyes fading to worry as they narrowed, his fingers making tiny circle patterns on the small of her back, "Aria, what's going on?" When she didn't answer, he sighed in frustration, putting the seat up back into its original position. He hesitated before locking gazes with her, "I'm going to ask this again: _what's going on with you_? You haven't given me a straight answer and I don't want to have to use my ways of persuasion on you…" He chuckled and looked at her lovingly, seeing the small pull at the corners of her lips, "I just want to be able to take care of you, to make you happy, to make you feel as beautiful as you are to me." He felt her tense up and he buried his face into the crape of her neck, giving the skin that lied there sweet and tender kisses, "And lately, I feel like I've been doing a pretty crappy job. So, please help me and my ego out here. Tell me what I can do to make our relationship better for you."

Aria pressed a kiss to his lips before leaning her forehead against his, murmuring, "If there was something wrong, trust me I would tell you. Now please stop worrying about me." She kissed the tip of his nose and the rough surface of his cheek which was covered with five o' clock shadow before she climbed off of his lap and slipped into place on her own seat and slipped her spaghetti shirt back onto her body and checked her makeup in the mirror.

He watched her closely and she caught him before he could snap his glance away from her. She shook her head as she reapplied her lipstick, "Now put on your shirt and get ready to go into the mall." When he didn't oblige, she rolled her eyes in his direction, "If you don't stop watching me like a hawk, I am going to have punish you in some way."

He cracked a grin, his cheeks turning the slightest bit pink and he ran his hand through his curly dark brown hair before reaching behind him and grabbing his white t-shirt. He quickly slipped it over his head. However, it was not before Aria was able to sneak in a few glances at his well-defined torso, "Your punishments always seem more like rewards. Shall we remember the time I hid your makeup bag and you tied me to a chair with my own belt? Ooh wee, that's a found memory that I have of you."

When she didn't respond except for the scarlet blemish on her cheeks, he leaned over and kissed her cheek tenderly, "You may not believe me, but you're beautiful; from the way you twirl your hair around your finger to the way you can't go to bed without a cup of tea to the way that you love me unconditionally. You're the reason I'm still here and you're the reason I keep trying my hardest. You give me th strength to not give up and move to another town."

He paused before he continued with a serious expression on his face, "These little things are what you add up to. But God forbid I let them slip out of my mouth." He smirked against his girlfriend's skin and nibbled on the lobe of her ear, making her giggle, "I love you, Aria. I'll love you until the world explodes. I'll love you if we're living in a box on a sidewalk in Brooklyn or in Buckingham Palace in England. I will love you no matter what. _**Please**_ never forget that."

"I wouldn't ever forget that."

His next words drew into a whisper in the surface of her ear, "_Promise me?"_

She turned her face toward him, seeing those burning blue eyes that smoldered a dark ocean of cobalt that drowned her each and every time she locked gazes with them, hidden underneath the silky curls of his dark brown hair. The words tumbling from his mouth made her feel the opposite of what he intended them to mean. She felt like it was a huge lie, that their whole relationship was a lie, that _**her life was a lie. **_She felt the opposite for being loved because she refused to love one thing, one person, one being: _herself. _

Aria ran her fingers through the familiar pattern of his hair, clutching the curls more tightly than usual, her tear-filled hazel gaze locked with his blue on before she leaned forward and pressed another kiss to his pursed lips, her mouth lingering on the soft skin for a few moments. The embrace was sweet and loving unlike the passionate and aggressive ones from three minutes before. It reminded her of how her love of this beautiful man was like that; at moments they're sweet, adorable, and tender when in other times, they were angry, passionate, and filled with angst. They were a couple of variety and they had absolutely no problem with that.

When they pulled apart, the young woman leaned her forehead against his, whispering with a hushed breath the two words that he wanted to hear:

"_**I promise."**_

* * *

Love wasn't easy to come by in Ezra's life. He didn't even know what it felt to be in love. He thought he had felt it with Jackie and he ended up being wrong when she dumped him after he proposed to her and she denied the engagement. He didn't know what it looked like. His parents were never the best examples when it came to that sort of thing, after they divorced when he was only twelve and put him and his younger brother, Wesley, in a nasty custody battle; it turned out later that both of them had been cheating. Love had a pattern of always seemed to have the pattern of fluttering away just outside of his reach before he could catch it and hold on to it for dear life. He often felt like a child letting go of a balloon, watching it floating it float away into the sky.

That was before he had met Aria. With her, he could be himself and open up to her. Sure, there were a lot of things in his life that he would never be able to tell her because of how messed up some of it was. He knew that if he did, he would be that child losing the balloon again. He had never met a girl like Aria Montgomery before and he didn't want to spend his life looking for another one because he knew that he would never find another person like her. She was it for him. He didn't need anybody else, he didn't want anybody else, and _he couldn't live with anybody else because __**he couldn't live without Aria**__. _

It wasn't any kind of new feeling for Ezra to have about her. From the first he saw her to that very moment as they walked through Rosewood Plaza, her hand in his, their paces equal and in time with one another. He was looking at her and realizing yet again how lucky he was to have her. He had put her through so much just by them being in a relationship. He asked a lot of her; from not completely trusting her when they were in the early stages of being together to just leaving her behind.

Ezra was doing his best to make it up to her. He couldn't physically bear that week in March after their first night together, after they had finally made love to one another. When he was up visiting his father in northern Pennsylvania, he couldn't stay for long. It had been strange; he had felt like this magnetic pull back to that small town in Pennsylvania, to that apartment that he and Aria had nicknamed their sacred ground, where a five foot two, one hundred girl awaited his return. She was his reason for going home because she was his home.

If he had known what his constant walking away and leaving her had done to emotionally damage her, he still would have gone—he just would have taken her with him so then they wouldn't have to be apart. He'd had so many thoughts of just running away together and eloping. They could start fresh in a city where no one knew their history-_or pretended to know it_- and just spend the rest of their lives together because, honestly, he wanted nothing more than to slip that engagement ring on Aria's fourth finger. He wanted nothing more for them than having a house in New York City with a couple of kids running around, two great jobs, and spend their lives together for the rest of forever, living eternally together with their hands still locked and their wedding rings still glimmering in the warm sunlight of the clouds of heaven. However, the reality was that real life and present times were much harsher than what his plans had in mind.

_**Much harsher than he could have ever expected…**_

Since coming to terms with the fact that Aria had an eating disorder, Ezra had been walking around her like she was a piece of glass. It wasn't intentional by any means, but he was still reeling with the fact that she would ever think of doing that to herself. He blamed himself more than anything else. He didn't want her to feel like she had to make herself throw up or starve herself to get to a size zero and if he was the reason why she was doing this, it was almost as painful as the time she told him she had kissed Jason. Only this time he felt guilty and regretful for not treating her like the princess she was. She was royalty to him.

He kept on researching more and more about eating disorders when Aria was asleep or not at the apartment, which was rare for either. Much like him, she was a night owl and would often try and seduce him when he was on his laptop late at night. It wasn't easy for him to sneak around behind her back and research the thing that was destroying her. She grew thinner and thinner by each passing moment; sometimes he thought she was shrinking right before his eyes. He kept on his search though, determined to find a way of helping her.

Because he would do anything just to see her _**genuinely **_happy again. It was all he wanted for her, for her to be happy and to find joy in life again. It killed him to see her trying to keep up a strong front when she was really just wasting away. And, knowing her better than anyone else, he knew when she was happy and when she was upset, but attempting to keep a smile on for the public eye because the sad teacher's girlfriend slash former student being depressed would make it even harder for the two of them to walk down the streets of Rosewood.

Aria poked Ezra's side and he jumped away from his thoughts. She giggled and drew closer to him, clutching his arm tightly, her fingers entwined with the grip of his palm against hers. Her grasp was weaker than it had been before. Her color was even more flushed than it had been a week before when they had made up from their fight. Her face was beginning to shrink into nothingness and even her chest was beginning to shrink. Her wrists and ankles were the sizes of broom handles. She wasn't one of those girls anymore. She was _that _girl. That girl who he didn't recognize and the girl who was broken with a missing manual.

When they had been getting physical in the front seat of his silver Toyota Camry earlier, he had tried to let her see him staring at the way her ribs were jutting out of her torso. It was worse than Ezra had thought. Sure they fooled around a lot but after seeing the damage…it hurt him. A lot. He couldn't even begin to imagine what Aria was going through all of this. He was determined to get her out of this rut; the scars would be there, but eventually, they would heal. Once she realized what she was doing, she wouldn't do it anymore. He would help her get through this. Their love could get through any obstacle. It had already proved that. They would get through this.

_**They would get through this together. **_

'"You're being really quiet, Ezra." Today must have been a good day for her. He was actually able to see a bit of the real Aria coming out. Her sunken hazel eyes had that a small hint of that familiar twinkle in her eyes, the twinkle that he saw when she was enjoying the time they spent together. She tugged on his arm a little bit, "Are you okay?"

Ezra flashed a bit of a smile at her, knowing that was what she really wanted to see, "I'm just tired of shopping." He held up the shopping bags from _Bath & Bodyworks_ and _Plato's Closet_, "We've spent over a hundred dollars already; we could have just gone to Goodwill or Save-A-Lot for some of this stuff." He grimaced. Ever since he got fired from Hollis, he had been sending out resumes and making cold calls to places around Rosewood. The numbers in his savings were getting lower and lower each week; between the rent on the apartment and the food-_or lack of . _He had gotten an offer at a school in Philly, but with the cost of gas, he would hardly be able to support himself, let alone Aria who was living with him for the time being, "Are we going to be able to go soon? My feet hurt and I rather-"

She interrupted him, "Yes, I know you rather watch grass die than following me around the mall all day, but come on Ezra! Please? I just need to run into _JCPenny _real quick to pick up a new summer dress and some new blouses and then I promise we can go back home, put in a movie and not watch it…"She stretched up and kissed the corners of his lips as if she was teasing him with a kiss before turning back to her planned destination, tugging her grumbling boyfriend along with her.

The junior's slash young woman's section was hardly populated. Actually, the entire clothing store seemed to be vacant. The only people the young couple saw were a young adult woman and two little girls under the age of ten. The young woman was very pretty, even though she hardly any makeup on. Her long chestnut brown hair that fell over her shoulders was tied back in a tight ponytail as she attempted to shop with the two little girls who kept on complaining about her taking too long and delaying their trip to the Disney Store. One of them, the younger of the two, had the hold of the woman's iPhone and was taking multiple selfies, loudly saying how fabulous she looked, and the other kept asking quietly about when they were going to leave. The woman was clearly overwhelmed.

Aria sympathetically looked at her as she and Ezra walked to the section, "These little ones must be a handful for a single mom."

The young woman's eyes widened and stared at the seventeen year old with a shocked expression on her face, "Oh, dear God no." She shook her head in exasperation, "You have to have sex in order to have kids, don't you? Well, I can assure you that I am as much of a virgin as I'll ever be because I am forever alone and I have finally come to terms with that sad fact." The blunt answer took the two of them by surprised and the woman just laughed, still shaking her head, "These two aren't my kids and as much as I love them, I am very thankful that they're not. They're my cousins who I got stuck with for the day. I seem to get stuck with them every time I go shopping." She laughed and stuck out her hand to clasp it with Aria's, "Hi, I'm Lyndsey."

She took it with the one that wasn't clenching Ezra's, "I'm Aria and this is my boyfriend, Ezra. It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Lyndsey looked at Ezra up and down, making him feel like a piece of meat in front of a hungry lion, "You're a lucky girl, Aria. This boy here sure is yummy. You remind me a lot of a taken piece of man candy who I can never have. It's very nice to meet you."

"I am pretty lucky aren't I?" Aria clung tightly to him and kissed his shoulder, "Well, don't get any ideas. Because he is all mine."

She waved her hands in denial, "I would never even begin to think of anything like that. You two are far too adorable. Are you already married? Are you newlyweds? If not, when you get married, can I come to the wedding and be the biggest fangirl ever over the fact of how cute you two are together?"

He finally interjected with a wide smile on his face as his gaze found the top of Aria's head, his lips following closely behind, "Well, we may as well be. Out of all the money we have spent today, it's like we already have a joint bank account." The three of them laughed and he didn't stop looking at his girlfriend, "But trust me, we will be getting married one day. And I'll be the luckiest man in the world."

"Aww, that's so adorable!" The young woman exclaimed, a bright grin crossing her face, "Could you do me a favor and clone yourself? Because it's not fair how Aria here has the only copy."

Ezra swallowed hard as his cheeks turned a deep scarlet red and his girlfriend beside him rubbed his arm affectionately and comfortingly before heading to one of the racks of dresses, leaving him alone with Lyndsey who kept on eying him like she was looking for the prize behind door number one. He coughed, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "So, um, how old are you?"

Lyndsey finally stopped drooling over him and turned her attention back to the rack of the clothes, getting frustrated as she could not find any clothes to her liking, "Well, I turned 21 in February, but I feel like I am no older than my five year old cousin over there," She gestured to the little girl on the dressing room chair with the iPhone in her hands, "I sure as hell don't spend as much time on my own phone than she does. My photos are filled her face. I sometimes just call her Sharpay instead of Laney because she thinks she's so fabulous But hey, the selfies get her shut up once in a while. I swear, it took me four years to figure out if that kid had an off button."

Ezra chuckled as he looked down at the older girl out of the two and she ducked behind her cousin's legs, clinging to the tightly, clearly scared of the curly haired man with the over friendly smile. He chuckled, "I'm taking it that she's just a little shy and that I shouldn't be offended over the fact that she didn't say hi to me?"

She shrugged, "Kealey is usually really polite and mature, which is rare to find in an eight year old, but she is the total opposite of her sister, Little Miss Fabulous. At school, she learned about stranger danger and took it as any stranger who she is approached by, she has to kick them in places where they don't want to be kicked."

"Well, I suppose that's a good thing." Kealey snuck a glance around Lyndsey's legs to lock eyes with him before going to joining her sister on the chair. She kept casting suspscious glances in his direction, "She really is taking that training seriously isn't she?"

"I rather her do that than getting into a white van with a creepy man with a gray beard." Lyndsey sighed and shrugged once more, "Anyway, tell me more about you and Aria. How long have you two been a couple?"

"August 1st was our eleven month anniversary."

"That's so sweet! What do you have in mind for the big one year next month?'

Ezra shrugged, "I haven't really thought about it yet. I want to lavish her with all the riches in the world, but, unfortunately, I am not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. We'll probably just have dinner and watch a movie. I may get her a necklace or something. I haven't decided exactly how we're going to go by it, but we're going to have fun, that's for sure." He watched as Aria bounded into the dressing room and he smiled widely,, "I love this girl more than anyone else in the world. She's the one for me. I don't want anybody else."

"I believe you." Lyndsey sighed in hesitation, "Ezra, I know we just met and everything, but I need to tell you something that I've noticed about Aria. She's rather gaunt and thin, don't you think? I'm sorry for overstepping boundaries, but I'm just concerned. I could see her ribs sticking out from underneath her shirt and when I shook her hand, it was like gripping the hand of a skeleton."

His blood ran cold and he struggled to find the words as he tried to deal with the fact that now strangers are even beginning to notice how malnourished Aria looked, "She's been trying to lose weight. I guess it's a little bit more rapid than either of us thought it would be."

"That's bull and we both know it. I know that you know what is really wrong here and by the looks of it, you're still denial about it." It must be hard to watch this happening to her, especially as much as you love and care about her." She shook her head, eyeing the dressing room where Aria was currently trying on summer dresses, "I know an eating disorder when I see one. Trust me, I've seen it third person of some of the girls I went to high school with and one of which was my friend who drove herself so thin, she was hospitalized. The consequences were that she couldn't have children because of how much damage it caused. No children, Ezra. All because of a mental disorder she got wrapped up in when she was in high school."

He lowered his voice into a very hushed tone, leaning closer to the young woman, "Look, I found out a week ago. I've been reading up on it and the majority of the articles and studies show that I can't just scream for her to eat more. I am doing my best to help her, but it's going to take time. She doesn't even know that I figured it out yet. And if it's hard for me to accept, then it must be ten times harder for her. She is going through a rough patch and I am trying to get to a point to where I can extend my hand to her, but right now, the best thing I can do is to figure out how I can do that without sending her off the deep end."

"Well, while you sit here, figuring it out, she is only going to get worse. If you want your girlfriend to get better, you need to find something more effective than just reading articles." Lyndsey began to dig around her purse and found a business card. She handed it to him, "Mid-August, they're starting an Eating Disorder Support Group." She smiled sadly at him, "Look, I know you're trying your best, but when it comes to your girlfriend's physical and mental health, your best isn't going to be good enough. I know that's hard for you to hear, but what you really need to do is to get her to a group of people who are trained to help her deal with this."

"You're right. That is hard for me to hear, let alone accept." He sighed as he slipped the business card into his pocket and locked gazes with the brunette, "How is your friend now? The one who was hospitalized?"

She swallowed and shook her head, "She passed away after three months in the hospital. She got pneumonia and killed her after two days. Her body…her body just wasn't strong enough." This answer chilled Ezra to his very core as she continued, "I hope she's happier now. That's all I wish for her." She tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear, "That's why I am trying to help both Aria and yourself.'

There was a long pause before she finally glanced at the time from the clock on the wall, obviously in a way for an escape hatch from the subject, "I better get these two to the Disney Store before I go insane from their constant complaining." She smiled at Ezra, "It was nice meeting you, Ezra. I hope everything works out well for you two. Happy early anniversary." She paused before continuing with the next three words after locking gazes with Ezra, "And good luck."

"Thank you." Those were the only words he was able to say. He watched as Lyndsey gathered up her two cousins and herded them away to the store exit.

"Ezra!" He heard his name being called from the woman's dressing room and he rushed into it to find Aria standing there with a beautiful summer dress shimmering down her gaunt body. The bright blue color matched her porcelain skin, making her look even smaller. She smiled at him as she turned around to reveal an unzipped zipper, 'Can you please help me out with this zipper?"

"Of course." He pasted his usual boyish smile onto his face for stepping toward ger and quickly zipped the zipper for her. However, before he had zipped it, he had seen the tag. The tag that was a harsher reality than what he had ever imagined. His blood wasn't even cold anymore, it was just so used to being numb.

___Lyndsey was right. Even his very best wasn't going to heal her._

Aria turned around to face him, her eyebrows drawing in skepticism, "Hey, Ezra...Ezra, are you okay?" She looked at herself up and down, "Do you not like the dress? I know's a little bright, but it's been a hot summer and dark colors only absorb the heat." She turned to the mirror and Ezra watched as her facial expression slightly changed. The glimmer in her eyes went from joyfulness to sorrow and disgust. He felt his heart break as she smoothed down the dress gently with her hands, her fingers trembling, "If you don't like it then..."

Ezra was quick to respond, wrapping his arms around his girlfriend, pressing his front to her back. He took her hands into his, their fingers entwining in a mess of skin, setting them right on her torso. He pressed his face into her neck and gave it a kiss before whispering, "It looks perfect on you. Just like everything else does." He paused for a moment before murmuring softly, "You're so beautiful." He looked into the mirror at them, realizing how small Aria looked compared to him from her place in his arms. He looked like a giant compared to her.

She turned to face him and gave him a kiss, the kind of kiss that calmed the body and set a fire to the soul. When she pulled away, her head found a familiar place on his chest, her arms wrapping around him. Ezra placed his chin on top of her head, closing his eyes, trying to ignore the way that her ribs pressed against him. She was so tiny and so fragile.

After a few moments, Aria untangled herself from her boyfriend's arms, wiping her eyes as if she were about to cry, "Well, I'm going to try on a few more, but this one is my favorite so far." She grinned up at him, "Give me twenty more minutes? I promise we'll go home soon. Thanks for being so patient and amazing." She locked eyes with him, reaching up to twirl a curl of his dark brown hair around her finger, "I love you." She leaned up to kiss his cheek and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I love you, too, Aria. More than you'll ever know." He returned the embrace, burying his face into her hair, before pulling away and locking eyes with her "Take your time, babe. I'll be here when you're ready to go." He kissed her forehead, "Now go finish your shopping and pick out some clothes that will make me go bankrupt."

"I'll make sure to do that." She shot him a smile before giving him another kiss and heading into the dressing room, shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Was the lock really necessary?" Ezra chuckled and called out.

He heard Aria giggle, "Well, if we're going to make it home some time later today, I need to lock the door so then you don't get any ideas about having sex in the dressing room."

Ezra laughed and responded, "Good point there."

Soon it wasn't long before the laughs and the smiles of Ezra disappeared. He collapsed onto the chair that Lyndsey's cousin Laney had sat in. He felt numb. He put his face in his hands and dug his fingers into his hair. A single tear rolled down from the corner of his left eye to where it dripped off the edge of his chin. He couldn't handle this. He tried to keep it together for Aria's sake, but now he was just trying to keep it together for _**himself.**_

How was it possible that this was his reality? That it was Aria's? How was this really happening? Was it even real? Was he having nightmare that he couldn't wale up from? Was he going to wake up next up to his girlfriend one summer morning where she is healthy and full of life again? Unfortunately, he knew this was the unfortunate reality that he had come to with his relationship with Aria.

He knew that this was more than he could handle and he didn't want to admit it. However, he realized what kind of a journey this was going to be when he saw that tag in the blue dress when he zipped it up for Aria. And he had to be honest: he didn't like the thought of what the destination might contain. It was going to be dangerous and one of them of going to get hurt. He remembered the feeling he had had back in June, the feeling of knowing something was going to happen to one of them during the summer, something that could destroy their relationship.

He was truly terrified.

_That bright blue dress was a size 2. In May, when he had gotten her a dress for Spring Formal at the high school, he remembered that it was a size 7._

_**Aria was five sizes down from where she was four months ago…**_

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed the fifth chapter of Thin Skin and Barely Bone. I hope it really equalized in sweet and sad now that Ezra knows the truth. He is going to need to do a whole lot more than reading a couple of articles to truly help get Aria back into a happy place. **

**And also, happy (belated) birthday to my good friend Lyndsey. If you haven't already, go read her story, Stepmother at 17. It's truly amazing and my favorite fanfiction at the moment. **

**Researching for this story has made me very much aware of the kind of side effects that eating disorders have and what damage they can cause. Yes, I have done my research because I want this story to be as realistic as I can possibly make it. **

**In the next chapter, it really will be a game change for both Ezra and Aria. A whole new element is being brought into the story. **

**Thank you for all over the kind words and constructive criticism that I received for chapter 4. And yes, I am trying to use less description than I have in the past. It's hard for me because after trying to get write more detailed paragraphs after writing mainly all dialogue for my first two stories, I trained myself to use more detail and less dialogue. Now I am trying to mix the two elements together. So, please bear with me as I try to do that! Please remember to review and give me more feedback! Thanks in advance!**

**To my twitter friends who I give links to, please review. I love all the tweets and appreciate them, but I like all the feedback in one place. Thank you for your continued support and patience. **

**See you soon!**


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